The World Was Going Our Way by Christopher Andrew Page B

against one of the most respected journalists in the Americas’. 17
     
     
    Encouraged by the Lima residency’s contacts with the junta, the KGB proposed formal co-operation with its Peruvian counterpart, the Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN), codenamed KONTORA. Negotiations between KGB and SIN representatives produced a draft agreement providing for an exchange of intelligence, co-operation in security measures, KGB training for SIN officers and the provision to SIN of KGB ‘operational technical equipment’. In June 1971 the CPSU Central Committee approved the draft agreement. Two operations officers and one technical specialist were stationed in Lima to liaise with SIN. Meetings between Soviet and Peruvian intelligence officers took place about once a week, usually in SIN safe apartments. The Lima residency noted with satisfaction that one of the immediate consequences of the agreement was the ending of SIN surveillance of the embassy and other Soviet offices. 18 With KGB assistance, SIN set up a surveillance post near the US embassy which secretly photographed all those entering and leaving, and recorded their names in a card index. SIN later used KGB equipment to record embassy phone calls and intercept radio messages. 19 The Centre claimed that co-operation with SIN led to ‘the neutralization of an American agent network in the [Peruvian] trade unions and the liquidation of an American intelligence operational technical group’. It also claimed the credit for ‘the exposure of the conspiratorial activity’ of the Minister of Internal Affairs, General Armando Artola, who appears to have opposed the Soviet connection and was sacked in 1971. 20
     
     
    Initially, KGB liaison officers found some members of SIN ‘guarded’ in their dealings with them. According to KGB files, however, many were won over by items of current intelligence, gifts, birthday greetings, ‘material assistance’, invitations to visit the Soviet Union and other friendly gestures. 21 Mitrokhin concluded from his reading of KGB files that intelligence both from ‘confidential contacts’ in the junta and from SIN was ‘highly valued’ in the Centre. 22 In 1973 the new head of SIN, General Enrique Gallegos Venero, visited Moscow for discussions with Andropov, Fyodor Mortin, head of the FCD, and other senior KGB officers. During his visit it was agreed to extend intelligence co-operation to include Peruvian military intelligence (codenamed SHTAB by the KGB). 23 Though apparently satisfied with the results of Gallegos’s visit, the Centre took a somewhat censorious view of the behaviour of SIN officers, ranging in rank from captain to lieutenant-colonel, who were invited to Moscow at its expense (air travel included) to take part in FCD training courses. One KGB report primly concluded:
     
     
     
    The Peruvians who were studying at the special P-2, P-3, and P-4 departments at the FCD’s Red Banner [later Andropov] Institute were active in making contact with girls and women of loose behaviour in Moscow, and had intimate relations with them, after which these acquaintances were handed over to another group of students for intimate relations. The students did not heed the attempts of the course supervisors to enlighten them. 24
     
     
    In general, however, the Centre congratulated itself on the success of intelligence collaboration with Peru. A 1975 report gave the work of the Lima residency ‘a positive evaluation’. 25 Intelligence on ‘the situation in Peru’s ruling circles’, some of it passed on to the Politburo, was assessed as ‘especially valuable’. 26 KGB co-operation with SIN against US targets led to the expulsion of a series of CIA officers and the curtailment of Peace Corps activities and US-sponsored English-language courses. 27 A relative of President Velasco’s wife, occupying ‘a high position’ in the administration, was exposed as, allegedly, a CIA agent. 28 The Lima residency also carried out