The KGB Plays Chess

[Paul Leblanc]

Just started reading the book and noticed that one of the authors Vladimir Popov, lives in Canada. Has anyone come across him?

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Just started reading the book and noticed that one of the authors Vladimir Popov, lives in Canada. Has anyone come across him?

Using my wide but flawed memory of CFC members, only one Popov comes to mind. He was from Montreal. But I think he was Theodore, not Vladimir.

Sounds like an interesting book. An earlier spying incident was the reason that, in the 1970s, Soviet embassy employees could not play at the R.A. Ottawa Chess Club. At least, that is what we were led to believe! Another rumour at the time was that CFC-rated chessplayer [name withheld], a 1970s Soviet embassy employee, was also a Colonel in the KGB, a gaybeast. Unlike the STASI, I'm guessing that KGB stuff is still sensitive to various personal and national securities.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

The book is barely believable. The "documented" activities of the KGB read like an over the top spy novel. Olga Korbut, sex slave. Katrina Witt, KGB agent. KGB agents monitoring Karpov's stool, Kasparov's handler reporting directly to a KGB general. Still....who knows. We always thought the place was very weird.

[Gilles Groleau]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Using my wide but flawed memory of CFC members, only one Popov comes to mind. He was from Montreal. But I think he was Theodore, not Vladimir.

Sounds like an interesting book. An earlier spying incident was the reason that, in the 1970s, Soviet embassy employees could not play at the R.A. Ottawa Chess Club. At least, that is what we were led to believe! Another rumour at the time was that CFC-rated chessplayer [name withheld], a 1970s Soviet embassy employee, was also a Colonel in the KGB, a gaybeast. Unlike the STASI, I'm guessing that KGB stuff is still sensitive to various personal and national securities.

2008 post by J. Berry
Lawrence,

Lev Zaitsev (whom I liked to think of as "Colonel Zaitsev", though his official embassy creds did not reflect any secret police affiliations) was an Expert and member of Ron Rodgers' club, the Ottawa Chess Club, when I came to Ottawa in 1975.

It's just a vague recollection, but weren't there three Soviet staff involved, and didn't one or two of them get sent back to the Motherland? The name Usaty or Usaaty sticks in my mind. Of course, that all happened 20 years before my chess time in Ottawa.

My bicycle route from the first office I set up for the CFC (at 10 Percy Street, now demolished) to Box 7339 in Vanier, went past the Soviet Embassy at Laurier and Charlotte. One day I happened to meet Colonel Zaitsev outside the embassy and we had to talk about the latest chess news (some from "64" magazine), at length. A few days later, I had a call from the RCMP.... of course, the Soviet Embassy was under surveillance.

While I lived in Ottawa (1975-84), another spy scandal happened, though it had nothing to do with the RA Chess Club.

My brother Chris works in television (e.g., the music program Rez Bluez 2 on aptn) as a cameraman. However, he never worked in Ottawa. Wilf Dagenais of the RA Chess Club was a sound man for CBC.

[Frank Dixon]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

I believe Ms. Witt, fantastically good looking, spied for the Stasi, the East German secret service; this was publicized after East Germany joined with West Germany to form modern-day unified Germany, and certain Stasi archives became public. Of course, the Stasi probably reported to the KGB. Apparently they secretly recorded some of her love-making sessions and may have used that to encourage her to work for them. She travelled the world as figure-skating champion, so would come into contact with many interesting people; she could have reported back to espionage masters on her meetings.

The best KGB literature I have come across is the two-volume set known as "The Mitrokhin Archive", jointly authored by Christopher Andrew and Vassily Mitrokhin, who was a retired KGB archivist when he defected to the West in 1992, bringing enormous ranges of notes. An extraordinary collection of really scary material, including great detail on the KGB assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940. Chess-related content is very minimal, but not totally absent, from this series. One question Mitrokhin could not answer was whether the former head of MI5, Sir Roger Hollis, was also a Soviet agent. Apparently Hollis, according to Chapman Pincher ("Their Trade Is Treachery", "Too Secret Too Long", "A Web Of Deception", etc) and Peter Wright ("Spycatcher"), was recruited by the GRU (Soviet Military Espionage Service, separate from the KGB) while working in China before he joined MI5. Hollis's son, Adrian, is a Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess. The Hollis case remains open; many people believe he was in fact a Soviet spy.

Alexander Orlov's memoirs are also fascinating; as a senior KGB agent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, he escaped a KGB summons to Moscow, choosing instead to flee from France on a ship to Canada, and then entered the U.S. Orlov's big secret was that Stalin had been a double agent for the Czar before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Anyone who knew that information was marked for death by Stalin, but Orlov got away and published this, just after Stalin died, in May 1953.

The one big question I have over the KGB's involvement with chess concerns their possible role in the death of World Champion Alexander Alekhine in March, 1946. Alekhine supposedly choked to death on a piece of steak, in his hotel room in Portugal. Chess was just getting going again after the end of World War II, and Alekhine, who was in financial straits, was angling for a world title match. If we could ever get the truth of that, chess history would have to be modified significantly.

GM David Bronstein's last book, "Secret Notes", published just after his death in early 2007, discusses pressure, applied by Soviet delegation heads, but emanating from the KGB, which was put on fellow Soviet GMs at Zurich 1953, to enable GM Vassily Smyslov to win the event. This had been rumoured for years, and was also confirmed by GM Alexei Suetin in his memoirs.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

These types of books are entertaining at best, if the reader does not take it too personally the authors' audicity with regards to readers' critical reasoning. They (the books) are almost invariably written in a "James Bond movie"style, but never disclose important facts.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Unfortunately, Alekhine disappeared with an era he belong to. World War II changed, among everything else, the world of chess as well. Probably whoever had the power at a given moment in KGB, had a favorite chessplayer to support. Maybe in 1950 KGB supported Bronstein, who knows?

[Frank Dixon]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Actually, Laurentiu, the case could be made that the KGB was very much against Bronstein in the 1950 to 1953 period. His personality and somewhat bohemian lifestyle were very much opposite to those of such rivals as GM Mikhail Botvinnik and GM Vassily Smyslov, who were seen as more ideal Soviet examples. Botvinnik in particular was very close to the ruling group during this period.

Bronstein's father was unjustly accused of unspecified crimes, as detailed in Bronstein's great 1995 book "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Johannon Bronstein was exiled from his family, transferred to the Gulag, for a period of some eight years. He obtained a later official acknowledgement that he had committed no crimes; the relevant documents appear in the book, in both Russian and English. It's possible that this happened because the KGB may have believed he was related to Leon Trotsky, whose original family name was Bronstein, as David Bronstein explains in the book.

As for Alekhine, he committed the ultimate crime against the Soviet state by defecting to France in 1920. His father had been a nobleman before the 1917Revolution, and a member of the conservative Fourth Duma of Czar Nicholas II. Alekhine's personal safety would have been very much in doubt under the Bolsheviks. He never returned to the Soviet Union after 1920. He won the World Championship in 1927 while a French citizen, and held it until his death in 1946, except for a two-year interregnum from 1935 to 1937, when Dutchman GM Max Euwe was champion, after defeating Alekhine narrowly in a 30-game match in 1935. My own view is that the KGB did play a role in Alekhine's death. There are a lot of murky facts still unexplained from that case. This organization was very strong on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) from the mid-1930s. The KGB did succeed in stealing most of Spain's gold reserves during the Spanish Civil War, as detailed in Orlov's book; he figured prominently in the operation. This led to a long period of official non-relations between the two nations, lasting at least 20 years afterwards. The KGB does have a very long memory. With the world still in disarray following the end of World War II, it wouldn't have been difficult for the KGB to mount an operation against Alekhine in Portugal.

Wonder if current Russian President Vladimir Putin can shed any light on the KGB's role in Alekhine's death!? After all, he was a rising star in the KGB himself (actually now renamed as the SVR, but it's the same thing!) before ascending into a higher plane of success following the decline of Boris Yeltsin.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Actually, Laurentiu, the case could be made that the KGB was very much against Bronstein in the 1950 to 1953 period.

it wouldn't have been difficult for the KGB to mount an operation against Alekhine in Portugal.

Please, read real history books. There was no KGB during the discussed period. It was established only ~1954 after Stalin's death, and it was not only a name change. The main secret and not-so-secret works were done by the NKVD.

It's possible that this happened because the KGB may have believed

There were time when they (NKVDist) did not need any valid reasons to shoot persons, to send them to Siberia or Arctic, aka Gulags. Chess world lost V.Petrov due to this.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

Mr. Dixon, great posting, well documented. I admit I did not read Bronstein's books and do not know much about his life. But to be a challenger in Stalin's time, when the great Paul Keres was sidelined, and to his luck not sent to Gulag, raises questions.

Alekhine's death is tragic no matter who had plotted it. I think nobody, Putin included, will shed any light on it anytime soon.

[Frank Dixon]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

I'm not going to bother itemizing the various name changes of the Soviet Secret Services. I know it was the NKVD before 1954, as our friend notes, but the point is, on the cover of Mitrokhin and Andrew's books, the KGB emblem is displayed, and the books are titled: "The Mitrokhin Archive, volume 1: The KGB in Europe and the West", and volume 2: "The KGB in the World". The authors itemize the various name changes and organizational restructurings in great detail. It covers the period after the Revolution, and even some before, with the Okhrana, the Czar's Secret Service. The Cheka, the first Bolshevik service, obtained the records of the Okhrana, and this is how Stalin's duplicity was discovered, probably in the late 1920s. This fact goes a long way towards explaining the repeated purges which Stalin used to try to cleanse his secret services; he wanted no knowledge of his double-dealing.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

The earliest references in the book are from the mid 70's. There's quite a bit about Karpov-Kortchnoi and behind the scene schemes to make sure that Karpov won. Also, there is a discussion about the first Karpov-Kasparov match and how Campomones was an agent of the KGB. There's an extensive chapter writen by Boris Gulko about his life as a refusnik.
I'm a little bit surprised that no one has come across Vladimir Popov. He seems to have imigrated to Canada around 2007. He would be an interesting character to talk to, having been forcibly retired from the KGB as a lieutenant-colonel just prior to coming to Canada

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

In Hamilton in about 1990 or 1991 the Hamilton Chess Club was asked to put on a tournament at Hamilton City Hall. We were told that there was a Russian trade delegation coming to Hamilton and that the city wanted the Russians to see that we play chess in Hamilton or something like that. Since it was a chance for a free room etc the club went ahead and did it, I was not personally involved in organizing but I did play in the tournament which was on a Sunday or maybe a Saturday. It took place at city hall on the second floor in the Alderman's area meeting room. I think there were about 20 or more players and we did a blitz tournament. Since city hall was closed they had the security guard let us all in.

When the delegation came by it turned out to be one person who looked like you would expect a civil servant to look like. The other person looked very much like you would expect a KGB minder to look like. They stayed for about 10 minutes or less and someone spoke to them through an interpreter.

I believe Kasparov also visited Hamilton once in some kind of odd tie in to Hamilton possible holding a world championship match?

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

I believe Ms. Witt, fantastically good looking, spied for the Stasi, the East German secret service; this was publicized after East Germany joined with West Germany to form modern-day unified Germany, and certain Stasi archives became public. Of course, the Stasi probably reported to the KGB. Apparently they secretly recorded some of her love-making sessions and may have used that to encourage her to work for them. She travelled the world as figure-skating champion, so would come into contact with many interesting people; she could have reported back to espionage masters on her meetings.

.

Katrina Witt was a spy for the Stasi only if you believe everything that the Stasi wrote in their own files or if you manage to twist around the comments there to read as such. I for one am not ready to believe everything that a murderous secret police wrote in their files is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I despise the Stasi and take nothing they say or said at face value. Nor am I supportive of us all reading her Stasi files or even select scholars given that the way the information was collected and the personal information contained there is a gross violation of her human rights. At the very least that type of organization lends itself to operatives that want to make themselves look good to their superiors. What some thug wrote in a report is hardly conclusive. Just as this book is designed to garner as much publicity and sales as possible. Katrina Witt was most certainly a victim of Stasi surveillance and attenntion given her prominent position as an elite athlete. Denouncing innocent people is how the Soviet secret service and Stasi worked. Let's not be doing the same thing or we are no better.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: The KGB Plays Chess

He [Popov] seems to have imigrated to Canada around 2007.

The internet has his letter where he wrote that he emigrated in 1995, though it did not said he moved to Canada directly.

Russian text "В августе 1995 года в возрасте 48 лет я навсегда покинул Россию, оставив в ней все, что было дорого: любимую престарелую мать и свою семью. Все эти годы я живу в Канаде, " from the one of the book author website http://felshtinsky.livejournal.com/6125.html