GRIGORI TOKAEV
Mr Hayter’s friends inform us that exhaustive tests have given as near a guarantee as possible that he is not a double agent.
Foreign Office memorandum,
12 June 1948
A lecturer in jet engine technology and rocket propulsion at Moscow’s Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, 39-year-old Colonel Grigori Tokaev was a scientist who had spent much of his career at the elite Institute of Engineers and Geodesics. Born in October 1909 and having graduated from the Moscow Higher Technical School in 1932, he underwent training at the Zhukovsky Military Air Academy. However, at the end of the Second World War he was transferred to Berlin with instructions from General Ivan Serov to recruit as many German scientists with a knowledge of missile research as he could find. In this context the NKVD’s reference to recruitment meant kidnapping, and when Tokaev discovered that Professor Kurt Tank, Focke-Wulf’s chief aircraft designer in Bremen was listed for abduction, he underwent a crisis of conscience.
While serving as a scientific advisor to the Soviet Control Commission, under the direct command of Marshals Georgi Zhukov and then Vasili Sokolovsky, Tokaev was called to the Kremlin in April 1947 to assess the work of the German experts already in harness and complete an evaluation of a rocket-powered bomber designed by Eugen Sänger. For the first time, Tokaev was indoctrinated into a Soviet missile development programme to be targeted against the West.
Appalled by the ruthlessness of the NKVD, Tokaev was also preoccupied by the fear that he himself might be kidnapped by an émigré organisation, and by the worry that the NKVD had learned of his support for Leon Trotsky. Unable to bear the pressure any longer, Tokaev crossed into the British sector with his wife Aza Baeva and their 8-year-old daughter Bella in early November 1947 and surrendered first to the military authorities, and then to the SIS station in Berlin headed by John Bruce Lockhart, who had him flown to RAF Northolt, to be installed with the initial codename STORK in a Kensington safe house.
The British received Tokaev with enthusiasm and elaborate arrangements were made to exploit the coup. The head of the RAF’s security branch, Owen de Putron, assigned a linguist, Molly Sasson, to act as case officer and a senior air intelligence officer,1 Christopher Hartley, was given the task of supervising the defector’s resettlement and collating his information. The family, accompanied by Sasson, continued to live in their safe house under MI5’s protection until a suspected assassin was detected outside the building, an incident that prompted a swift evacuation to an isolated farmhouse in Kingsbridge, Devon, owned by a retired SIS officer, Fred Winterbotham, who had previously headed the organisation’s air intelligence section.
As well as the valuable technical information that Tokaev was willing to disclose, he revealed when questioned a further dimension, claiming to be in contact with a reliable source inside the Politburo’s secretariat. From SIS’s viewpoint, the prospect of this additional recruitment opportunity was an extra bonus and the source was tentatively identified as a Central Committee official, Petr I. Dubuvoi. When pressed by his interrogator, Tokaev named his intermediary as one Yarotsky, and mentioned involvement with a subversive underground group active across the Soviet Union.
At the end of November 1947, MI5’s deputy director-general, Guy Liddell, discussed STORK with a senior RAF officer and recorded the conversation in his diary:
I had a word with Air Marshal Lawrence Pendred about STORK the Russian defector from the equivalent of RAE Farnborough. He said that a lot of extremely valuable information had already been obtained. He seemed to have the answer to everything. I asked Pendred whether previous estimates about the potentialities of the Russian Air Force were confirmed. He said that from what he had been able to gather so far the Russians were not nearly so far as we thought they were.2
Tokaev also played a role in April 1948 in the defection of Colonel Yuri D. Tasoev, head of the Soviet Reparations Committee in Bremen, whom Tokaev had recommended to SIS as a potential agent several months earlier. A period of cultivation followed, codenamed Operation HOUSE PARTY, and then a meeting was convened at which, quite unexpectedly Tasoev, codenamed CAPULET, asked for political asylum.
Contact with Tasoev had been attained initially through an American intermediary, the local United States director of G-2 military intelligence, General Robert Walsh. The final meeting took place on 23 April 1948 at the home of the director of Bremen’s United States Port Operations, Stanley A. Clem when, against Tokaev’s advice, delivered in their native Ossetian language, Tasoev decided there and then to defect. They drove to Hamburg, where they spent the night together, sleeping in the same room, and then, after sharing a midday meal, drove to a British aircraft for a flight to England. The plane, on temporary loan to SIS, was the personal transport of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and had flown Tokaev to Bremen the previous day.
Tasoev’s meeting with Tokaev had been arranged apparently in the hope that both men could boost each other’s morale and demonstrate SIS’s capacity to attract and protect defectors. It was also hoped that the operation would ‘loosen Tokaev’s tongue’ as he had become increasingly capricious and reticent. However, the encounter was not a success and each accused the other of being a traitor. While Tokaev appeared very shaken by the episode, Tasoev’s confidence was completely undermined and on 7 May 1948, at the first opportunity, fled his safe house, a six-roomed flat at 19 Rugby Mansions, in Bishop King’s Road, Kensington, managed by SIS’s Betty Wiggins, and asked a patrolling police constable in Olympia to take him to the Soviet Embassy. Tasoev was then escorted to Hammersmith police station where he was incarcerated while embarrassed Foreign Office staff arranged for him to be repatriated to Gatow, on 20 May 1948, to the Russian kommandantura in Berlin. SIS concluded that CAPULET’s change of heart had been prompted by his fear of retribution against his 20-year-old son Vasili, then a student in Moscow.
The Tasoev debacle proved extremely awkward, especially when the matter was raised in the House of Commons and the TASS news agency reported that the officer had been abducted by Tokaev and British intelligence personnel. On 7 July 1948, a Foreign Office minister, Kenneth Younger, who had himself served in MI5 during the Second World War, undertook the delicate task of fielding mischievous questions from radical backbenchers, among them Geoffrey Bing MP. The SIS Chief, Sir Stewart Menzies, came in for particular opprobrium and was privately accused of having bungled the affair, his line that SIS had no suitable facilities in Germany in which to hold and question Tasoev seemed very thin. He certainly acted outside the JIC’s guidelines on the handling of defectors and the ensuing inter-agency spat drew in MI5 too, with the Security Service highly resentful of SIS’s behaviour, and its failure to understand that even foreign nationals could not be locked up indefinitely without any legal grounds. To make matters worse, General Lucius Clay expressed his disapproval of the way American personnel had been drawn into the affair. In the aftermath, it emerged that Menzies had orchestrated Tasoev’s recruitment largely to placate Tokaev, and that SIS had really intended to support Tokaev’s grandiose schemes for establishing and sustaining an underground anti-Soviet movement. By humouring Tokaev, Menzies had sought to extract yet more technical data from the defector who was expressing signs of resentment towards his hosts.
According to his file, Tokaev was much chastened by the fiasco and became considerably more cooperative, evidently conscious that the Soviets had turned the entire event to their advantage, alleging that Tasoev had been assaulted and kidnapped. Both MI5 and SIS could agree that the incident would have a negative impact on future attempts at defection from the eastern bloc.
In London, Tokaev, who adopted the Ossetian version of his name, Tokaty, was codenamed EXCISE and debriefed by a Russian-speaking SIS officer, Wilfred Dunderdale (alias Mr Douglas), at the Special Liaison Centre in Ryder Street where his trenchant political opinions were given wide circulation by the newly created Information Research Department, resulting in a series of articles published by the Sunday Express in January 1949. However, his controversial views caused considerable adverse comment in Whitehall where his analysis was largely unwelcome, and there had been widespread dismay concerning a press conference called in September 1948, which had been intended to introduce Tokaev to selected newspaper journalists. Instead, the ill- prepared event, hosted by his literary agent, Cyrus Brooks, of A.M. Heath & Co., descended into a bitter argument between the Russian correspondents and the other attendees. Photographers were not allowed to take his picture, Communists tried to monopolise the proceedings, and the whole affair was regarded as a colossal flop, causing SIS, and Robin Brook in particular, much anxiety.
While SIS regarded Tokaev as a valuable asset, and IRD saw the immense propaganda advantages of publicising his anti-Stalin treatises, the Foreign Office’s northern department, responsible for Russian policy, became increasingly alarmed at his potential impact on Anglo- Soviet relations. The IRD had been created by Christopher Mayhew MP to counter Moscow’s growing influence, and he had the support of the virulently anti-Communist Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who was entertained to tea by Tokaev, but the day-to-day management of the small group was in the hands of Ralph Murray, who was not then a senior figure. Accordingly, the IRD and its activities were never especially popular in King Charles Street, and even the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, William Hayter, would express reservations about Tokaev’s perceived volatility. As Tokaev became increasingly restless at his confinement and continuing interrogation, he spent much time drafting slightly eccentric memoranda on such diverse topics as Soviet meddling in Palestine, the split with Tito and Stalin’s policy toward Mao Zedong. He also wrote numerous pamphlets, supposedly for clandestine distribution in the Soviet Union by White Russians, but these initiatives led to him being described by one official as ‘becoming a little unbalanced’. Astonishingly, in mid- July 1948, there was speculation in the Foreign Office that Tokaev might be ‘a very long-term plant and may be wishing to reassure Moscow’. Hayter was especially critical, remarking ‘the more I see of EXCISE’s products the more difficult I find it to regard him as a serious character’. Nevertheless, apart from his somewhat odd political views, Tokaev answered questionnaires assiduously and drew up personality profiles of the leading Soviets he had known. These in turn served to enhance SIS’s reputation for gathering accurate military, political and technical information.
Undeterred, Tokaev continued to submit unsolicited reports and commentaries on current events for the prime minister and foreign secretary. Discontent about him even extended to his protection. SIS employed a single retired, unarmed Special Branch detective, Inspector Dew, to act as Tokaev’s sole bodyguard, but by any standards this provided inadequate coverage.
Despite the setbacks and a deteriorating relationship with Whitehall, SIS proposed another scheme to acquire a Soviet defector, Colonel Tyupanov, who had been identified as likely to be persuaded to seek political asylum, but Tokaev was doubtful about his motives and the project was shelved.
Tokaev’s interviews subsequently formed the basis of his two autobiographies, Betrayal of an Ideal, published in 19553, and Comrade X,4 released the following year. They also attracted adverse comment, which resulted in libel actions being brought against the Communist publications Daily Worker and Russia Today.
Tokaev subsequently pursued a distinguished academic career at Imperial College London, Cranfield College and City, University of London. He also participated in NASA’s Apollo lunar programme and retired from City, University of London in 1975 following allegations that he had given illicit assistance to the examination results of some of his students. He died in Cheam in November 2003, and his British Foreign Office file was declassified two decades later, which contained the following MI5 case summary:
In August 1948 MI5’s Soviet espionage research section completed an analysis of the Tokaev case.5
TOKAEV was born on 13.10.1909 near Vladikavkaz in the Caucasus. He is of Ossetian origin which he describes as a small minority of Indo- Iranians living in the Northern Caucasus. Son of a peasant family, he had the normal upbringing of a Caucasian peasant and although he attended the usual village school and later graduated to secondary schools etc., he was in his early years, almost entirely self-educated. He joined the Communist Party in February 1932 having previously been a member of the Komsomol.
In July 1932 he obtained nomination as a student at the Zukhov Military/Air Academy in Moscow where he studied for five years, qualifying as an ‘aero-constructor’ in 1937. He was appointed an engineer in the aero-dynamics laboratory in the same Academy, eventually becoming the head of the laboratory. In December 1940 he was transferred to the appointment of deputy head of a department in the Academy and on 16.4.41 he became a Doctor of Science which he describes in German as ‘Kandidat Technischer Wissenschaften’ of the same Academy. In November 1942 he became ‘Dozent im Flugzeugbau’ and was appointed lecturer and in November 1944 he was appointed senior lecturer – honorary title of professor – at the Academy, During this period he lectured to other institutions, and had attained the rank of Engineer Lieutenant-Colonel.
At the end of the [Second World] war, on the 28th June 1945, TOKAEV arrived in Germany on appointment to the Abteilung Luftwaffe at the SIA Karlshorst, Berlin, remaining there, however, only five weeks. On the formation of the Allied Control Authority Secretariat (U.S. Sector of Berlin) he was appointed Joint General Secretary of the Russian element of this Allied Secretariat, where he remained until 6th March 1946. During this period he had occasion to meet a large number of British, American and French officials, and he realised for the first time in his life that these people were human beings and moreover gave an impression of freedom of thought and action which was quite contrary to his Soviet upbringing. At this time TOKAEV apparently had several conversations with his Western friends about possibilities of visiting their countries.
On the 6th March 1946 he transferred at his own request to the SIA. Although he had been extremely interested in the work of the Allied Secretariat and above all with the contacts he had been able to make there, he realised that he was not a clerk but a technician, hence the request to be returned to the duties with which he was familiar.
In the SlA he had the general assignment of collecting all possible information on German aero-dynamics. In addition he had certain subsidiary tasks from time to time. As examples of these he gave:-
(a) To discover in detail the organisation and structure of the German Luftfahrtforschung Akademie which is next door to the GAF Ministry in Berlin. This task was on direct instructions from MALENKOV in Moscow.
(b) To examine and obtain all available information on the project SANGER. This was a so-called project thought up by SANGER for a supersonic long range very high altitude jet propelled bomber which had been discovered by TOKAEV and a few more engineers in 1945. Moscow expressed great interest in this project.
(c) To try to persuade SANGER and certain of his colleagues to transfer to Moscow; this again was on direct orders from MALENKOV, VOSNESENSKY and General SEROV but TOKAEV was unable to carry out this assignment.
(d) Throughout the whole of his service in Germany he was consultant on air development matters to Marshal SOKOLOVSKY. He was taken to Moscow by the Marshal on two occasions to act as his advisor at conferences in the Politburo.
In October 1946, TOKAEV was called to Moscow by the Soviet Foreign Office as consultant in the preparation of the air clause of a German peace treaty. He was required to prepare a report stating which German aircraft experts were still in Germany and which had been taken to the West.
In April 1947 TOKAEV was again summoned to Moscow where he was told by VOSNESENSKY, a member of the Politburo, Deputy Prime Minister, and chairman of the State Planning Commission:-
Comrade TOKAEV, we have asked you to come in order to have your views on SANGER’s project; they say you are opposed to it; is that so or not? Give us your observations.
TOKAEV expressed his views which were briefly that SANGER’s project did not exist – that the material described as a project only represented rough notes and an interrupted formulation of an interesting idea. It would require extensive and very serious research to build such an aeroplane as SANGER had visualised. Out of the discussions arising from this meeting a project was formulated which included the following:-
The Soviet of Ministers of the USSR directs:-
A Commission is to be created composed of the following, Colonel General YAKOVLEV, Engineer Lieutenant Colonel TOKAEV, Academican KELDISH and Professor KISHKIN.
This Commission is to proceed to Germany to carry out research for further details and specialists dealing with SANGER’s project. On completion of this task the Commission will submit a reasoned report on the practical possibility of realising SANGER’s project.
Marshal SOKOLOVSKY is to afford the Commission all possible assistance.
On the following day TOKAEV was taken to see Stalin, MOLOTOV, MALENKOV, ZHKINOV, BULGANIN, VOROSHILOV, MIKOYAN, BERIA, V0SNESENSKY and SHVERNIK.
Stalin asked TOKAEV about SANGER’s project and TOKAEV again repeated his reservations. Under Stalin’s direction it was there and then arranged that the Commission with General SEROV instead of General YAKOVLEV should be set up and should present its report by the 1st August. While TOKAEV was in the room Stalin telephoned SOKOLOVSKY, told him that TOKAEV’s chief in Germany, KUTSEVALOV, was being removed, and said that TOKAEV was to be made deputy to whoever took charge of the Air Department. On the next day, the 10th April 1947, the Commission left for Germany.
General SEROV and TOKAEV immediately had a sharp dispute about the former’s treatment of one of the German scientists. Next SEROV on his own initiative appointed to the Commission Stalin’s son, a man of whom TOKAEV had a very low opinion. At the end of April a telegram was sent to Stalin stating that the Commission had so far failed to find any further materials or specialists on SANGER’s project. TOKAEV at the same time, with the knowledge of the Commission, sent his own telegram to the effect that his attitude to the SANGER project remained unchanged, and that in his opinion the methods of the Commission were all wrong.
TOKAEV was immediately summoned by SOKOLOVSKY who told him that MALENKOV was very displeased by his behaviour and that he was to drop his obstinacy and his personal intrigues.
VORSHNIKOV had instructed SEROV, KELDISH and KISHKIN to proceed to Moscow and the work of the Commission was to be handed over to General ALEXANDROV, TOKAEV refused to work under ALEXANDROV whom he considered quite unsuitable and whom he personally disliked.
Marshal SOKOLOVSKI flew into a terrible rage and in spite of his objections, TOKAEV started work with the Commission under ALEXANDROV on the May 1947.
The burden of the work of the Commission fell on TOKAEV’s shoulders. Meanwhile LANGE, one of the German scientists working for the Russians, had drawn up a plan for starting a construction office to design an elaborate supersonic aircraft. TOKAEV protested against this plan as he did not think LANGE and his team were capable of designing such a plane. Moscow, however, approved the aircraft and asked that a Russian report should be provided regarding the LANGE Group’s proposals, TOKAEV met the LANGE Group and after a long exchange of ideas, the Group presented an ambitious programme of work. This was forwarded to Moscow together with TOKAEV’s comments which were to the effect that he did not consider that the LANGE Group was worthy of any serious attention.
About two weeks later TOKAEV was informed that he was relieved of work on the Commission. He became aware that he was falling under suspicion and furthermore a number of his friends and colleagues were disappearing, lie asked Stalin’s son whether he could be received by Stalin to talk about the work of the Commission, but he was told not to worry. He also wrote a request to be allowed to return to the USSR.
In July 1947, General SEROV unexpectedly arrived back in Germany and told TOKAEV that they must start looking for specialists in designing jet-propelled aircraft engines. TOKAEV said that he had been removed from work on the Commission and he again asked to be allowed to return to Russia. SEROV, however, said that he was to stay in Germany and continue work on the LANGE/SANGER project. TOKAEV also became involved with an attempt to get another German scientist, Professor TANK, to cone to Russia, This negotiation was a most complicated one (TANK was a suspected British agent) and as a result of this it seems that TOKAEV fell more and more under suspicion, TANK had in fact been in contact with the British authorities. To suspect TANK was, therefore, reasonable] and it may well have been reasonable for the Russian security authorities to suspect TOKAEV, if they had already evidence that he was disloyal to the regime.
TOKAEV, according to his own statements, had long been anti-Stalin and he had been involved with an anti-Stalin underground movement in Russia and in Germany. He went on leave to Moscow in September 1947 and there he obtained certain information about arrests of fellow conspirators which led him to believe that he would soon be caught himself. It was a matter of time before his underground connections would be discovered and his involvements with the suspect TANK would be another nail in his coffin. He therefore hurried back to Germany and decided to try to defect.
After considerable thought he chose the Canadians to defect to as opposed to the British, Americans or French, for the following reasons:-
1. He is violently against the Potsdam Agreement.
2. He had heard in Russia that the British hand back defectors.
3. He was opposed to the materialistic outlook of the Americans.
4. Among the French there are too many people like Thorez and Duclos.
He therefore chose the Canadians as being ideologically closest to the British and as not having been signatories of the Potsdam Agreement, In about September 1947 he wrote and sent through the ordinary mail a letter to the Canadian Military Mission in which he said that Officer X, a high ranking Russian Officer, asked for asylum for himself and his family and promised to respect Canadian laws. He said that he would telephone on a given day, but no call was received from him. Later he wrote another similar letter which was handed to the Persian Mission with the request that it be delivered to the Canadians.
By October 1947 the net had started to close around TOKAEV. He had been questioned about what he knew of the underground organisation, was under constant surveillance and indeed was more or less under open arrest.
On the 13th October 1947 he again asked in writing to be sent back to the USSR and was told to prepare for his departure. On the 21st October he was informed that he was released from duty. TOKAEV started preparing to leave for Moscow, but in the meantime he was also trying to get in touch with the Canadian Military Mission to whom he had written over a month earlier. An officer who knew of TOKAEV’s difficulties went to an address in the French Sector in Berlin and telephoned the Canadians. Two days later he was flown back to the USSR with his family, and TOKAEV never learned the result of the telephone call, He then decided that he would have to take a risk; he asked an unknown German to telephone the Canadians and ask for their decision. An appointment was made for the following day and after various elaborate and efficient arrangements, TOKAEV, his wife and small daughter, were removed by air. It was not until the last minute, after he had entered the plane, that he discovered that in fact it was the British who were in charge of his escape. He was horrified at this discovery and expected at any moment to be put down at a Soviet airport. However, he has expressed the greatest satisfaction at his subsequent treatment by us and says that he now realises that the story that the British hand back defectors must have been Stalinist propaganda.
TOKAEV has been extensively interrogated, has provided a very large amount of technical and political information and his interrogation is still in progress. He has been a very difficult man to exploit. First, he is fanatically anti-Stalin and is anxious that we should immediately carry out his plans to help bring about the downfall of the Stalin government, plans of a propagandist nature whose implementation could not be countenanced. The refusal to carry them out has caused TOKAEV [to] have frequent bouts of annoyance, in which he refuses to cooperate in his interrogation. Secondly, he has consistently refused to cooperate in any atter.pt to contact and use his alleged former fellow conspirators for intelligence purposes.
During his first interrogation TOKAEV was asked why he had defected. He did not reply for some time, saying that he was not really quite clear in his own mind yet as to why he had taken the step. He gave several reasons,
a. He had belonged to a small Indo-Iranian minority, for many years domiciled in the Caucasus, whose national characteristics and in fact whose existence had been destroyed by the Soviet regime.
b. He has been fortunate in that he had a good education and obtained a position of importance in his particular profession. He therefore lived in a way far superior to the greater majority of his fellow countrymen. He could not, however, help realising that the majority of the subjects of the USSR lived in a state of complete squalor in order that the aims and objects of the Stalin regime might be carried through – in other words, that his people were being betrayed by their government to further their own ends.
c. He learned while in Berlin to despise Russian propaganda. He realised its utter falseness. He got to know British, American, French and other Western Europeans, He realised that the propaganda regarding Eastern Europe and the United States as put out in every Russian newspaper, every radio programme, every theatre and in every book was false.
d. He realises that the Stalin regime has systematically endeavoured to seal off Russian thinkers from all civilizing influences; that any section of the community which believes in being unable to carry out its tasks efficiently without some contact with the outer world is liquidated. In this connection he mentioned that there has recently been a systematic purge of all scientists of international reputation. That he himself was under suspicion and that unless he took this opportunity of deserting he would not get a second chance,
e. He has a child. He wants her to have a free education, not the hopelessly biased and propagandised one that she would get in a Russian school.
TOKAEV has given all his interrogators the impression that he was fanatically anti-Stalin, He said that he would never do anything against his own people, but that he was prepared to do anything in his power to destroy the present Russian Communist regime; that the Russian nation fought the war in order to destroy Hitlerism and oppression and semi-slavery; they fought it with their allies in the hope that on victory being obtained they would have the same privileges and freedom as their allies. This hope was never realised – their position now is worse even than before the war.
After his defection TOKAEV was anxious to go somewhere where he could live as a free man and where he could work towards the destruction of the present Russian regime in order that someday he may return to Russia and find it a country where man is free.
Tokaev may not have turned out to be all that SIS had hoped for, but his extensive knowledge of Kremlin personalities, and the senior army staff at least proved the point that a single, well-informed defector, however ‘difficult’, was infinitely more valuable than the hundreds of Red Army line-crossers who deserted their posts to become refugees in the west. Huge resources were devoted to the interrogation of these low-level sources for little practical return, apart from some tactical intelligence that soon became outdated. Both MI5 and SIS, fully committed to the principle of attracting knowledgeable defectors, even if the Soviet authorities had spread the falsehood that ‘the British handed back deserters’ learned several lessons from Tokaev, particularly in the area of resettlement, but it would be some years before either organisation had another opportunity to embrace a really valuable defector.