'Wunderkind' illegals, heroes for Soviets, still retain aura

MOSCOW: In the lore of Soviet spycraft, few figures command as much respect as the "illegals", steel-jawed agents with the intelligence of a chess grandmaster and the fortitude of a cosmonaut.

Painstakingly trained in the KGB's Directorate S, the illegals spent years assuming a fake biography, known in Russian as a "legend", then awaited orders undercover for years or even decades. Unlike their "legal" counterparts, they worked without a diplomatic cover, which would offer them immunity from prosecution.
They were rewarded with the kind of adulation Americans reserve for movie stars.

This week's arrest of 11 people seems to offer a glimpse into a recent form of the program. But if prosecutors are correct, two things seem clear: First, that Russia's network of illegals has survived, and perhaps even grown, since the Soviet Union's collapse. And second, that the agents' assignment — collecting information about politics and getting to know policy makers — can now be achieved through more straightforward means.

"It strikes me as a very well-organized, very well-thought-out and very out-of date approach," said Olga Oliker, a policy analyst for the RAND Corporation. "I would lay money on bureaucratic inertia. It's something that might have made sense in a previous period."

Maj Gen Yuri Drozdov, who ran the illegals program for more than a decade while he was in the KGB, called his recruits "wunderkinds", people who often spoke three or four languages with native fluency.

Throughout the Soviet era, such agents were rewarded with adulation. Illegals like Rudolf Abel and Konon Molody became such national heroes that the External Intelligence Service, or SVR, still posts their biographies on its website.