It's not Gorbachev or Anyone You've Likely Ever Heard of
Does the name Vladimir I. Vetrov ring any bells? How about his codename, Farewell? Probably not, yet he is arguably the main man responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, not Ronald Reagan or Mikhael Gorbachev. Who was this man and what did he do that was so damaging to the USSR?
Vladimir Vetrov was a KGB colonel in charge of the Paris Line X operations, a covert operation established in 1964 whose mission was industrial espionage. The Soviet Union realized its inefficient methods and economy could not match the more productive and innovative west by its own devices, so to keep pace it devised a plan to steal or otherwise hijack the west's technology by any means necessary. This was Line X.
Staffed with spies, engineers and scientists, Line X obtained as many as 5,000 "industrial samples" a year. This was accomplished by stealth, blackmail or by the simple expedience of buying forbidden technology from unscrupulous capitalists. As Lenin said, "Capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with." Line X succeeded in propping up the woeful Soviet economy for almost two decades.
After years of living in the west observing its success and prosperity, Vetrov became more and more disillusioned with the "miracle of socialism" and its failure to deliver on its promise to the average citizens of his homeland. Fate (or was it) intervened by way of an auto accident with a French driver who offered to pay all damages. He and the generous Frenchman became friends. Unbeknownst to Vetrov, the Frenchman was a member of the DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territiore), the French FBI. The friendship grew closer over the years, and continued through letter correspondences after Vetrov was reassigned to Moscow in 1970.
After ten years of carefully incubating this intimacy, the DST got the break it was hoping for when Vetrov offered his services to the west. In espionage parlance he was turned, though more accurately he volunteered from his disillusionment with the enduring failure and corruption of the Communist system. The information he provided the French was a disaster for the KGB and its Line X operation which was virtually neutered and rendered worthless. The blow to the Soviet economy, which now had to stand on its own, was never overcome.
Vetrov was undone in February, 1982 apparently succumbing to the stress of being a mole in the belly of the beast of KGB Moscow headquarters. One afternoon while drinking in his car with his secretary a fellow KGB officer rapped on his window to say hello. Thinking his cover was blown, he snapped and stabbed the man and his own secretary to death. The authorities only discovered the full extent of Vetrov's betrayal in the ensuing murder investigation. Shortly after learning their mole was burned, the French and her western friends rolled up Line X and it was dead. Soon after that, so was the Soviet Union.
Source:
SPIES. The Secret Agents Who Changed the Course of History
by Ernest Volkman
published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
copyright Terry Colon, 2006