The intelligence profession - that is, the practice of collecting information about the enemy, competitor and even ally - is one of the oldest in the world. It appeared in primitive society, when the tribes began to fight each other for the possession of territory and resources. And over time, the role of intelligence only increased. It has become one of the most popular and effective instruments of state policy. The security of the state and its actions in the international arena largely depended on how accurate the intelligence data was about the alignment of political forces in the camp of a potential enemy (ally), about his hidden intentions, weapons and moods in the army, economic potential and moods in society. And at all times, women in intelligence have played an important role.

However, many professionals were negative about attracting women to work in intelligence. So, for example, the head of department III-b of the General Staff (German intelligence service in 1913-1919), Colonel Walter Nicolai, was convinced that there was no place for women in the secret order of the knights of the cloak and dagger. For a long time, they were skeptical in the intelligence services of Great Britain, France, and Italy. The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR and at the same time the first chairman of the KGB of the USSR Ivan Serov and some other leaders of Soviet intelligence did not favor them either.

At the heart of this attitude towards female agents was the belief that intelligence is still a man's business, since it requires good physical fitness, self-confidence, composure, the ability to think logically and analyze the information received. And women, by their nature, are too emotional, trust feelings more than logic, are physically weak and poorly versed in politics and military affairs, it is easier to “split” them during interrogation, etc. In general, with the qualities necessary in intelligence, women are not going smoothly. Especially with logic. No wonder there are so many anecdotes on this topic.

True, not everyone agrees with this. Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, believed that "Women's direct instinct can sometimes be more valuable than any logical arguments", and no less famous English writer, poet and short story writer, Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1907, Rudyard Kipling wrote that "Women's intuition is much more precisely than a man's confidence." The famous French psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, historian and undisputed founder of social psychology, Gustave Le Bon, also held a high opinion of women's abilities: “A serious advantage of a woman over a man is the instinctive ability often quickly and unconsciously to guess things that a man comes to only after prolonged deep reflection. he wrote.

Some of the skeptics may say that this is the opinion of non-professionals, and it is hardly worth relying on it. Let's not argue. Let's turn to the opinion of professionals.

The legend of illegal intelligence, Hero of the Soviet Union Gevork Vartanyan believes that women play a special role in intelligence. “It is sometimes easier for them to establish contact with a person of interest to us. Often in such cases, my wife Gohar acted first - she met the wife of the right person, and this did not arouse suspicion in anyone. Slowly, friendships developed between the families. And it turned out that I met this man on neutral ground, and he could no longer say anywhere: they say, I was getting close to him. It's always best to work in pairs. If you are with your spouse (as I have been all my life), you are more trustworthy. It is more difficult for one to penetrate into the right circle. These are the words of a man who knows what he is talking about - the Vartanyan married couple, who have over thirty years of illegal work abroad behind them, is considered one of the most productive in the history of modern intelligence. And the fact that during the Tehran Conference in November 1943 it was possible to prevent the assassination attempt on the leaders of the "Big Three" - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill - is their considerable merit.

Aliza Magen, former deputy director of the Mossad, Israel's political intelligence agency, which is considered one of the most efficient and professional intelligence agencies in the world, believes that "women's intuition is stronger than men's. And intelligence is a job where intuition is indispensable. In addition, there are places where a woman can safely pass and, without arousing suspicion, see everything that is needed. And if a man appears there, and one more, without a lady, he will inevitably arouse suspicion.

And here is how Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, Deputy Head of the British Ministry of the Interior for Security Affairs, answered the question of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent why women are taken into analytical intelligence. At one time, she served as Assistant to the Prime Minister and Chairman of the United Kingdom's Joint Inter-Services Intelligence Committee and became the prototype of Lady M - the head of His Majesty's Secret Service and the boss of James Bond.

“I think women are more observant and considerate than men. From my personal experience in government, I noticed that many women who have held positions of responsibility pay great attention to detail. I think this is very important in intelligence and special services. When performing tasks of a special nature, one must be an exceptionally attentive and meticulous person. Women just have such abilities. And we appreciate it."

So those who considered and continue to consider women as beings weak and good for nothing are mistaken. Many intelligence agencies have long been convinced that the so-called "weakness" is an excellent cover for a female intelligence officer. And in the art of impersonation, resourcefulness and acting talent, they have no equal. Here they may well give odds to male scouts.

Here is one example of female resourcefulness.

Atomic Secrets in a Gasket Bag

In the early 40s of the last century, Soviet intelligence managed to recruit the young American atomic physicist Arthur Fielding (operational pseudonym - "Perseus"), who held a very responsible post at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In July 1943, he was supposed to hand over to the agent of the I Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR (foreign intelligence) Leontine Teresa Cohen (operational pseudonym - Helen Kroger) a package with materials on the Manhattan Project, within which work was carried out to develop nuclear weapons. This was not easy to do. The FBI was aware of the interest shown by foreign intelligence in this project, and all contacts of employees associated with nuclear research were carefully monitored. Already on the distant approaches to Los Alamos there were dense police cordons, which carefully checked the documents of all suspicious persons.

Nevertheless, the meeting between Arthur Fielding and Leontine Teresa Cohen took place and was successful, though not in Los Alamos itself, but in Santa Fe - the capital of the state of New Mexico - which is located about 60 kilometers from Los Alamos. And now Cohen was faced with the task of safely getting out of Santa Fe. At each car of the train, on which Leontina was supposed to return to New York, there were police officers who carefully checked the documents and luggage of passengers. What to do? In wartime conditions, the least that threatened a Soviet intelligence officer when secret documents were discovered was an electric chair. Leontina went into the station building, went to the toilet, threw out half of the contents of the bag with gaskets and put the documents received from Fielding into it. Then she waited a little and at the last moment ran to the train. Here she pretended to have lost her ticket and frantically looked for it in her purse, asking the policeman to hold the bag of gaskets. Finally finding a ticket, she jumped on the bandwagon of the already departing train, and the policeman ran after her, holding out the package with the words: “Miss, miss, take it, you forgot it!” ...

Soon these most important materials were sent to Moscow and handed over to the leading nuclear scientist of the USSR, Academician Igor Kurchatov, under whose leadership in KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, VNIIEF) in 1949 the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 (the so-called "product 501").

This case is another proof that women can find a way out in the most critical situation. After all, it is no coincidence that during the Second World War, the British intelligence and sabotage service of the USO began to use female agents as couriers to transfer secret information - they were much less likely to be stopped and searched than men, and even play some kind of mini-performance to distract attention, they could be much more professional than male agents. They also had one more "professional" weapon - tears. And women used it very skillfully.

The Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China also stakes on women. In its depths, a strategy was developed based on working with agents within the Chinese diasporas around the world. In accordance with this strategy, Chinese intelligence penetrated the state apparatus and law enforcement agencies of many countries through the multi-million Chinese communities, gaining the opportunity to influence decisions. Thus, according to experts, the Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China controls the main information and financial flows, as well as many branches of legal and illegal business in the countries of Southeast Asia. This strategy earned Chinese intelligence the laurels of the third most powerful in the world. And the “dragon lady”, who is fluent in the art of hand-to-hand combat, foreign languages ​​​​and special knowledge, plays an important role in it.

Chinese scientists generally believe that women are better suited than men not only for intelligence, but even for military service. They endure stressful situations better, are less sensitive to pain, learn new information faster, adapt better to a changing environment, etc. And physically, a woman is not so weak as it seems at first glance.

Weaker sex?

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the author of the first full-scale historical treatise "History", describing the Greco-Persian wars, mentioned in his writings the Greek diver Cyana, who made a significant contribution to the victory of the Greek naval commander Themistocles in the famous naval battle between the Greek and Persian fleets on September 28, 480 BC e. near the Greek island of Salamis. It was a decisive battle, because if the Greeks were defeated, slavery and death awaited.

Cyana was the daughter of Scyllius, who knew no equal in diving. No one could so deftly extract treasures from sunken Greek and Persian ships. Scillius taught his art to Cyana, and she excelled in it.

On the night before the battle, when a storm was raging at sea and the sails were torn to shreds, the father and daughter sailed 15 km. The Greeks, delighted with the feat of the girl, sculpted a statue of Cyana and placed it in the temple of Apollo in Delphi, and Herodotus told her story. So Cyan can rightfully be called the first underwater saboteur or combat swimmer.

And remember the legendary Amazons, who considered their patron goddess Artemis as the embodiment of a warrior woman! For many women, they have become a symbol of female independence and a role model, sometimes literally, and for men - a model of beauty and attractiveness.

The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that Amazon women lived on the borders of the inhabited world (that is, outside the territories known to the Hellenes). They ruled the tribe and were engaged in military affairs, and the men busied themselves with the housework, following the instructions of their wives. And when children were born, men were also entrusted to take care of them. Legends and testimonies of ancient historians attribute to the Amazons participation in the Trojan War, the invasion of the Cimmerians (a nomadic people who lived in the Crimea and the nearby steppes) into Asia Minor, a campaign in Attica (the country of ancient Greek city-states) and the siege of Athens. They had excellent mounted and foot reconnaissance. Who would have thought that among the hundreds of women roaming the local market, there are Amazon spies who scout for weaknesses in the enemy's defenses.

The Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, the first European who crossed the Amazon from the foothills of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean in 1541-1542, also encountered warrior maidens. Indian scouts, among whom were women, followed Orellana's detachment, and on June 24, 1542, he was attacked in one of the parking lots. Here is the testimony of the monk Carvajal, who participated in the expedition: “The battle that took place here was not for life, but for death, for the Indians mixed with the Spaniards and defended themselves with marvelous courage ... We saw with our own eyes that in battle they fight ahead of everyone and are for them something like leaders ... These wives are very tall and white-skinned, their hair is very long, braided and wrapped around their heads. They are very strong, and they walk almost naked - they only cover their shame. They have a bow and arrows in their hands, and in battle they are not inferior to a good dozen Indians, and many of them - I saw it with my own eyes - fired a whole armful of arrows at one of our brigantines ... ".

The Indian Amazons fought against the Spaniards in the forefront and showed unparalleled courage and outstanding martial arts. It was not possible to capture at least one of them in order to show the Spanish Catholic Majesties as a trophy. As it was not possible to conquer the country, which the Spaniards called "Amazonia", and the river - "Amazon". (The name "Brazil" appeared later on the basis of the old Celtic legends about the fabulous island "O Brazil" - the island of happiness inhabited by women).

So the concept of “weaker sex” is very relative. Especially in our time. And even more so in intelligence. A woman is naturally endowed with such qualities and abilities that are far from superfluous in this very specific kind of activity. Charm and sensuality, sexual attractiveness, and, if necessary, ostentatious modesty, cunning, the ability to intrigue and, let's say, unconventional logic, more than once rescued her in the most difficult situations. And if a female agent is also beautiful, then this can generally become a trap for men. In the desire to give significance to their person and make an impression, men sometimes forget and begin to talk about what is known only to a narrow circle of initiates. And it's no secret that women have achieved great success in intelligence precisely because, as the well-known aphorism says, "the weaker sex is stronger than the strong because of the weakness of the stronger sex to the weak." No wonder that beauty, charm and even deliberate defenselessness (read - weakness) have been used in intelligence since biblical times.

Vladimir Mayevsky

In March 1862, the famous spy Rose O'Neill Greenhow was tried. She was accused (justifiably) of passing information during the American Civil War in favor of the Confederacy: she informed the southerners about the deployment of northern troops. But there was no evidence against Rose O'Neill. Before her arrest, she ate all the documents incriminating her. After the trial, she left for Richmond, where Confederate President Davis Jefferson awarded her a $2,500 bonus.

Rose O'Neill drowned two years later. They said about her that she was an amazing spy, because she knew the plans of the enemies better than President Lincoln. What would the allies do if not for her natural charm and modest female beauty?

Success in many ways comes easier to the fair sex - and all thanks to appearance. In this collection you will find the most beautiful spies in the world who have also achieved a lot in their field.

1. (1942-2017). "Mata Hari 60s". The former British model also worked as a prostitute, but she brought more value to intelligence. While working in a topless cabaret, she had an affair with British Minister of War John Profumo and the USSR Naval Attache Yevgeny Ivanov.

But Christine needed lovers not for personal purposes: she fished out secrets from the minister, then selling them to her other lover. In the course of the scandal that broke out, Profumo himself resigned, soon the prime minister, and then the conservatives lost the election.

Christine after the scandal became even richer than before: the beautiful spy was incredibly popular with journalists and photographers.

2. Cohen Leontine Teresa (Kroger Helen)(1913-1993). She was a member of the US Communist Party and a trade union activist. In New York, at an anti-fascist rally in 1939, she met Morris Cohen, who later became her husband. Cohen collaborated with Soviet foreign intelligence.

It was on his tip that she was recruited. At the same time, Leontina guessed about her husband's connections with the USSR. Without hesitation, she agreed to help the state security agencies in the fight against the Nazi threat.

During the war years, she was a liaison agent for the foreign intelligence station in New York. Until the last days of her life, she continued to work in the illegal intelligence department. She was buried at the Novo-Kuntsevo cemetery.

3. Irina (Bibiiran) Alimova(1920-2011). A veterinarian by profession, Alimova became an actress because of her beautiful appearance. After the role of Umbar's lover in the film of the same name, the girl became famous. She continued to study acting.

With the outbreak of war, Bibiiran wanted to go to the front and ended up in military censorship. After the war, she received an offer to work in local counterintelligence. In 1952, under the pseudonym Beer, she left for Japan to work illegally in the Soviet residency, which was being revived after the death of Richard Sorge.

Its chief was our intelligence officer, Colonel Shamil Abdullazyanovich Khamzin (pseudonym - Khalef). They entered into a fictitious marriage, Alimova became Mrs. Khatycha Sadyk. But after a few years, their relationship moved from the category of legends to true romantic love.

4. Hope Troyan(1921-2011). During the war, finding herself in the occupied territory of Belarus, Nadezhda Troyan joined the ranks of the anti-fascist underground. She was a messenger, scout and nurse in partisan detachments. Participated in operations to blow up bridges, attack enemy carts.

Her most significant feat was the destruction, together with Elena Mazanik and Maria Osipova, of the fascist Gauleiter of Belarus, Wilhelm von Kube. The women planted a mine under his bed.

After the incident, Hitler declared women to be his personal enemies.

5. Anna Morozova(1921-1944). In the 1930s, the largest military airfield was built in Seshche, where Morozova grew up. There Anna Morozova worked as an accountant. During the capture of the airfield by Hitler, she left with the Soviet troops, and then returned - allegedly to her mother. She remained to work for the Nazis as a laundress.

Thanks to the data she transmitted, two German ammunition depots, 20 aircraft and 6 railway echelons were blown up.

In 1944, the girl was seriously wounded, and in order not to be captured, she blew herself up with a grenade along with several Germans.

6. (1876-1917). From a wealthy family. She lived for seven years in an unhappy marriage on the island of Java with a drinking and dissolute husband. After returning to Europe, she divorced.

She was recruited by German intelligence before the war, and during it, Mata Hari began to cooperate with the French. With the money she received, she covered her card debts.

The girl had many connections with high-ranking French politicians who were afraid of a damaged reputation. Some historians believe that as a spy, Mata Hari did not show herself very strongly.

In 1917, she was declassified by the French military and sentenced to death. On October 15, the sentence was executed. Perhaps it wasn't even because of her job as a scout.

7. Violetta Jabot(1921-1945). At 23, she became a widow and joined the ranks of British intelligence. In 1944, she went to occupied France on a secret mission to transmit data on the number and location of enemy forces to the headquarters, as well as to carry out a number of sabotage actions.

After completing the assignments, she returned to London to her little daughter. After some time, she again flew to France, but now the mission ended in failure - her car was detained, she fired back for a long time, but the enemy turned out to be stronger.

She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, famous for its brutal torture and medical experiments on prisoners. The tormented Jabot was executed in February 1945. She became the second woman in history to be posthumously awarded the George Cross. Later, the scout was awarded the Military Cross and the medal "For Resistance".

8. Amy Elizabeth Thorpe(1910-1963). Her intelligence career began when she married the second secretary of the US Embassy. The man was 20 years older than Amy, and she cheated on him left and right. The husband did not mind: he was an agent of British intelligence, and Amy's lovers helped to obtain information.

But her husband died, and agent Cynthia left for Washington, where she continued her activities as a scout: through the bed she obtained information from French and Italian employees and officers.

Her most famous espionage stunt was the opening of the French ambassador's safe. By skillful action, she was able to do this and copy the maritime code, which later helped the Allied forces to carry out the landings in North Africa in 1942.

9. Nancy Wake (Grace Augusta Wake)(1912-2011). Born in New Zealand, the girl suddenly received a rich inheritance and moved to New York, and then to Europe. In the 1930s she worked as a correspondent in Paris, criticizing Nazism.

Together with her husband, she joined the ranks of the Resistance when the Germans broke into France. During its activities, the White Mouse helped Jewish refugees and military personnel to cross out of the country.

After that, she was engaged in organizing the supply of weapons and recruiting new members of the Resistance. Nancy soon learned that her husband had been shot by the Nazis, as he did not tell Nancy's whereabouts. The Gestapo promised 5 million francs for her head.

10. Anna Chapman (Kushchenko)(born 1982). She moved to England in 2003, and since 2006 she has been running her own property search company in the US.

Being married to artist Alex Chapman, she tried to get information about US nuclear weapons, politics in the East, influential people. On June 27, 2010, she was arrested by the FBI, and on July 8, she confessed to espionage activities.

Moreover, as it turned out, Chapman was in connection with a certain peer from the House of Lords and even saw some princes. The money for a luxurious life was brought to her by a business sponsored by some unknown person. As a result, Anna was deported to Russia under a spy exchange program.

11. Josephine Baker (Frida Josephine MacDonald)(1906-1975). Daughter of a Jewish musician and a black washerwoman. She became popular during the Paris tour of the Revue Negre in 1925. Baker walked around Paris with a panther on a leash, for which she was nicknamed the Black Venus.

She married an Italian adventurer and became a countess. She worked at the Moulin Rouge, but also starred in erotic films. In 1937, she renounced US citizenship in favor of France, and then the war began, in which Black Venus actively became involved, becoming a spy.

Baker trained as a pilot and was promoted to lieutenant. Transferred money to members of the underground. After the war, she continued to dance and sing, and also starred in television series. For services to France, she was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor and the Military Cross.

12. Olga Chekhova (Knipper)(1897-1980). An actress who never acknowledged a connection with intelligence. Filmed in Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable and other stars.

She married Mikhail Chekhov in the 30s and forever kept his last name, although in her homeland in Germany the authorities forced her to return her maiden name.

Goebbels hated the actress because she rejected him. But at the same time, the Fuhrer himself sympathized with her. In April 1945, Olga was arrested by Soviet intelligence of the USSR, the spy was taken to Moscow. After that, she visited West Berlin, and then moved to Germany. This visit was shrouded in mystery.

The media wrote that Chekhova was a Soviet spy who received the Order of Lenin for services to the USSR from the hands of Stalin himself. Persons close to the Soviet leadership claimed that Chekhov was preparing an assassination attempt on Hitler.

In the summer of 1953, according to reports, she completed her last task: she connected Beria with Konrad Adenauer.

13. Nadezhda Plevitskaya(1884-1949). Incredibly popular singer and actress of those years. Together with her husband Nikolai Skoblin, she was recruited by the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

Nikolai Skoblin, by the way, was the youngest general of the White Army. He was then only 27 years old.

Plevitskaya's most successful operation is considered to be the abduction of Yevgeny Miller, the head of the Russian All-Military Union. The result was to be the appointment of Plevitskaya's husband to the position of Miller.

14.Margarita Konenkova(1895-1980). The girl, nicknamed Lucas, spent half her life in the United States as a spy. The owner of a bright appearance and a sharp mind, she managed to win over Albert Einstein.

What kind of connection Konenkova and Einstein had was not known for certain. But in their personal things they found messages from personal correspondence, filled with tender words.

The debate about the role of the female factor in intelligence has not subsided for many years. Most of the inhabitants, far from this type of activity, believe that intelligence is not a woman's business, that this profession is purely masculine, requiring courage, self-control, willingness to take risks, to sacrifice oneself in order to achieve the goal. In their opinion, if women are used in intelligence, then only as a "honey trap", that is, to seduce gullible simpletons who are carriers of important state or military secrets. Indeed, even today the special services of a number of states, primarily Israel and the United States, actively use this method to obtain classified information, but it is adopted more by counterintelligence than by the intelligence services of these countries.

The legendary Mata Hari or the star of French military intelligence during the First World War, Martha Richard, are usually cited as a standard for such a female intelligence officer. It is known that the latter was the mistress of the German naval attache in Spain, Major von Kron, and managed not only to find out important secrets of German military intelligence, but also to paralyze the activity of the agent network he created in this country. However, this "exotic" method of using women in intelligence is the exception rather than the rule.

OPINION OF PROFESSIONALS

And what do the scouts themselves think about this?

It is no secret that some of the professionals are skeptical about female intelligence officers. As the well-known journalist Alexander Kondrashov wrote in one of his works, even such a legendary military intelligence officer as Richard Sorge spoke about the unsuitability of women for serious intelligence activities. According to the journalist, Richard Sorge attracted female agents only for auxiliary purposes. At the same time, he allegedly stated: “Women are absolutely not fit for intelligence work. They are poorly versed in matters of high politics or military affairs. Even if you enlist them to spy on their own husbands, they will have no real idea what their husbands are talking about. They are too emotional, sentimental and unrealistic.”

It should be borne in mind here that this statement was made by an outstanding Soviet intelligence officer during his trial. Today we know that during the trial, Sorge tried with all his might to get his associates and assistants, among whom were women, from under the blow, to take all the blame on himself, to present his like-minded people as innocent victims of his own game. Hence his desire to belittle the role of women in intelligence, to limit it to solving only auxiliary tasks, to show the inability of the fair sex to work independently. Sorge was well aware of the mentality of the Japanese, who consider women to be second-class creatures. Therefore, the point of view of the Soviet intelligence officer was understandable to Japanese justice, and this saved the lives of his assistants.

Among foreign intelligence officers, the expression "scouts are not born, they become" is perceived as a truth that does not require proof. It’s just that at some point, intelligence, based on the tasks that have arisen or assigned, requires a specific person who enjoys special confidence, has certain personal and business qualities, professional orientation and the necessary life experience in order to send him to work in a specific region of the globe.

Women come into intelligence in different ways. But the choice of them as operatives or agents, of course, is not accidental. The selection of women for illegal work is carried out with particular care. After all, it is not enough for an illegal intelligence officer to have a good command of foreign languages ​​and the basics of intelligence art. He must be able to get used to the role, to be a kind of artist, so that today, for example, impersonate an aristocrat, and tomorrow - a priest. Needless to say that most women know the art of reincarnation better than men?

For those of the intelligence officers who happened to work in illegal conditions abroad, there have always been increased requirements also in terms of endurance and psychological endurance. After all, illegal women have to live away from their homeland for many years, and even organizing an ordinary vacation trip requires comprehensive and deep study in order to exclude the possibility of failure. In addition, not always a woman - an employee of illegal intelligence can communicate only with those people who she likes. Often the situation is just the opposite, and one must be able to control one's feelings, which is not an easy task for a woman.

Galina Ivanovna Fedorova, a wonderful Soviet illegal intelligence agent who worked abroad in special conditions for more than 20 years, said in this regard: “Some people think that intelligence is not the most suitable activity for a woman. In contrast to the stronger sex, she is more sensitive, fragile, vulnerable, more closely attached to the family, home, more prone to nostalgia. By nature itself, she is destined to be a mother, so the absence of children or a long separation from them is especially difficult for her. All this is true, but the same small weaknesses of a woman give her powerful leverage in the field of human relationships.

DURING THE YEARS OF THE WAR

The pre-war period and the Second World War, which brought unprecedented misfortunes to mankind, radically changed the approach to intelligence in general and to the role of the female factor in it in particular. Most people of good will in Europe, Asia and America are acutely aware of the danger that Nazism brings to all mankind. In the harsh years of war hard times, hundreds of honest people from different countries voluntarily linked their fate with the activities of our country's foreign intelligence, carrying out its tasks in various parts of the world. Bright pages in the annals of the heroic deeds of the Soviet foreign intelligence were also written by female intelligence officers who operated in Europe on the eve of the war and on the territory of the Soviet Union, temporarily occupied by Nazi Germany.

Actively worked in Paris for Soviet intelligence on the eve of World War II, a Russian émigré, the famous singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya, whose voice was admired by Leonid Sobinov, Fedor Chaliapin and Alexander Vertinsky.

Together with her husband, General Nikolai Skoblin, she contributed to the localization of the anti-Soviet activities of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which carried out terrorist acts against the Soviet Republic. Based on the information received from these Russian patriots, the OGPU arrested 17 ROVS agents abandoned in the USSR, and also established 11 safe houses for terrorists in Moscow, Leningrad and Transcaucasia.

It should be emphasized that thanks to the efforts of Plevitskaya and Skoblin, among others, Soviet foreign intelligence in the pre-war period was able to disorganize the ROVS and thereby deprived Hitler of the opportunity to actively use more than 20 thousand members of this organization in the war against the USSR.

The years of war hard times testify that women are capable of carrying out the most important reconnaissance missions no worse than men. So, on the eve of the war, Fyodor Parparov, a resident of Soviet illegal intelligence in Berlin, maintained operational contact with the source Marta, the wife of a prominent German diplomat. From her regularly received information about the negotiations of the German Foreign Ministry with British and French representatives. It followed from them that London and Paris were more concerned with the struggle against communism than with the organization of collective security in Europe and the repulse of fascist aggression.

Information was also received from Marta about a German intelligence agent in the General Staff of Czechoslovakia, who regularly supplied Berlin with top secret information about the state and combat readiness of the Czechoslovak armed forces. Thanks to this information, Soviet intelligence took steps to compromise him and arrest him by the Czech security forces.

Simultaneously with Parparov, in the prewar years, other Soviet intelligence officers also worked in the very heart of Germany, in Berlin. Among them was Ilse Stöbe (Alta), a journalist who was in contact with the German diplomat Rudolf von Schelia (Aryan). Important messages were sent from him to Moscow with warnings of an impending German attack.

As early as February 1941, Alta announced the formation of three army groups under the command of Marshals Bock, Rundstedt and Leeb and the direction of their main attacks on Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv.

Alta was a staunch anti-fascist and believed that only the USSR could crush fascism. In early 1943, Alta and her assistant Aryan were arrested by the Gestapo and executed along with members of the Red Chapel.

Elizaveta Zarubina, Leontina Cohen, Elena Modrzhinskaya, Kitty Harris, Zoya Voskresenskaya-Rybkina worked for Soviet intelligence on the eve and during the war, sometimes carrying out its tasks at the risk of their lives. They were driven by a sense of duty and true patriotism, the desire to protect the world from Hitler's aggression.

The most important information during the war came not only from abroad. It also constantly came from numerous reconnaissance groups operating near or far from the front line in the temporarily occupied territory.

Readers are well aware of the name of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, whose majestic death has become a symbol of courage. Seventeen-year-old Tanya, a reconnaissance fighter of a special forces group that was part of front-line intelligence, became the first of 86 women - Heroes of the Soviet Union during the war period.

Unfading pages in the history of the intelligence of our country were also written by women scouts from the Pobediteli special forces detachment under the command of Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Molodtsov’s operational reconnaissance and sabotage group operating in Odessa, and many other combat units of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, who mined important strategic information.

A modest girl from Rzhev, Pasha Savelyeva, managed to obtain and transport to her detachment a sample of chemical weapons that the Nazi command intended to use against the Red Army. Captured by the Nazi punishers, she was subjected to monstrous torture in the Gestapo dungeons of the Ukrainian city of Lutsk. Even men can envy her courage and self-control: despite the brutal beatings, the girl did not betray her teammates. On the morning of January 12, 1944, Pasha Savelyeva was burned alive in the courtyard of the Lutsk prison. However, her death was not in vain: the information received by the intelligence officer was reported to Stalin. The Kremlin's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition seriously warned Berlin that retaliation would inevitably follow if Germany used chemical weapons. So, thanks to the feat of a scout, a chemical attack by the Germans against our troops was prevented.

Lydia Lisovskaya, a scout of the "Winners" detachment, was the closest assistant to Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Working as a waitress in the casino of the economic headquarters of the occupation forces in Ukraine, she helped Kuznetsov to make acquaintances with German officers and collect information about high-ranking fascist officials in Rivne.

Lisovskaya involved her cousin Maria Mikota in intelligence work, who, on the instructions of the Center, became an agent of the Gestapo and informed the partisans about all the punitive raids of the Germans. Through Mikota, Kuznetsov met SS officer von Ortel, who was part of the team of the famous German saboteur Otto Skorzeny. It was from Ortel that the Soviet intelligence officer first received information that the Germans were preparing a sabotage action during a meeting of the heads of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in Tehran.

In the fall of 1943, Lisovskaya, on the instructions of Kuznetsov, got a job as a housekeeper to Major General Ilgen, commander of the eastern special forces. On November 15, 1943, with the direct participation of Lydia, an operation was carried out to kidnap General Ilgen and transfer him to the detachment.

YEARS OF THE COLD WAR

The hard times of war, from which the Soviet Union came out with honor, were replaced by long years of the Cold War. The United States of America, which had a monopoly on atomic weapons, made no secret of its imperial plans and aspirations to destroy the Soviet Union and its entire population with the help of this deadly weapon. The Pentagon planned to unleash a nuclear war against our country in 1957. It took incredible efforts on the part of our entire people, who had barely recovered from the monstrous wounds of the Great Patriotic War, the exertion of all their forces to frustrate the plans of the USA and NATO. But in order to make the right decisions, the political leadership of the USSR needed reliable information about the real plans and intentions of the American military. Women intelligence officers also played an important role in obtaining secret documents from the Pentagon and NATO. Among them are Irina Alimova, Galina Fedorova, Elena Kosova, Anna Filonenko, Elena Cheburashkina and many others.

WHAT IS COLLEAGUES?

The Cold War years have sunk into oblivion, today's world is safer than 50 years ago, and foreign intelligence plays an important role in this. The changed military-political situation on the planet has led to the fact that today women are less used in operational work directly "in the field." The exceptions here, perhaps, are again the Israeli intelligence Mossad and the American CIA. In the latter, women not only perform the functions of “field” operatives, but even head intelligence teams abroad.

The 21st century that has come will undoubtedly be the century of the triumph of equality between men and women, even in such a specific sphere of human activity as intelligence and counterintelligence work. An example of this is the intelligence services of such a conservative country as England.

Thus, in the book Scouts and Spies, the following information is given on the “elegant agents” of the British special services: “More than 40% of the intelligence officers of MI-6 and counterintelligence of MI-5 in Great Britain are women. In addition to Stella Rimington, until recently the head of MI5, four of the 12 counterintelligence departments are also women. In an interview with members of the British Parliament, Stella Rimington said that in difficult situations, women often turn out to be more decisive and, when performing special tasks, are less subject to doubts and remorse for their deeds compared to men.

According to the British, the most promising is the use of women in recruiting male agents, and an increase in female personnel among the operational staff as a whole will lead to an increase in the efficiency of operational activities.

The influx of women to work in the special services is largely due to the recent increase in the number of male employees who want to leave the service and go into business. In this regard, the search and selection of candidates for work in the British intelligence services among the students of the country's leading universities has become more active.

Another sophisticated reader may probably say: “The USA and England are prosperous countries, they can afford the luxury of attracting women to work in the special services, even in the role of “field players”. As for the intelligence of Israel, it actively uses in its work the historical fact that women have always played and are playing a big role in the life of the Jewish community in any country in the world. These countries are not a decree for us.” However, he is wrong.

So, in early 2001, Lindiwe Sisulu became the Minister for All Intelligence Services of the Republic of South Africa. She was 47 years old at the time, and she was not a novice in the special services. In the late 1970s, when the African National Congress was still underground, it received special training from the ANC military organization Spear of the People and specialized in intelligence and counterintelligence. In 1992, she headed the security department of the ANC. When a parliament united with the white minority was created in South Africa, she headed the intelligence and counterintelligence committee in it. From the mid-1990s, she worked as Deputy Minister of the Interior. According to available information, the National Intelligence Agency, which was previously considered independent, also came under its command.

WHY IS THEY NEEDED FOR INTELLIGENCE?

Why are women in intelligence encouraged? Experts agree that a woman is more observant, her intuition is more developed, she likes to delve into the details, and, as you know, “the devil himself is hiding in them.” Women are more diligent, more patient, more methodical than men. And if we add their external data to these qualities, then any skeptic will be forced to admit that women rightfully occupy a worthy place in the ranks of the intelligence services of any country, being their decoration. Sometimes female intelligence officers are assigned to carry out operations related, in particular, to organizing meetings with agents in those areas where the appearance of men, based on local conditions, is highly undesirable.

The combination of the best psychological qualities of both men and women conducting intelligence abroad, especially from illegal positions, is the strength of any intelligence service in the world. It is not for nothing that such intelligence tandems as Leontina and Morris Cohen, Gohar and Gevork Vartanyan, Anna and Mikhail Filonenko, Galina and Mikhail Fedorov and many others, known and not known to the general public, are inscribed in golden letters in the history of foreign intelligence of our country.

When asked what the main qualities, in her opinion, an intelligence officer should have, one of the veterans of foreign intelligence, Zinaida Nikolaevna Batraeva, answered: “Excellent physical fitness, the ability to learn foreign languages ​​and the ability to communicate with people.”

And today, even, unfortunately, quite rare publications in the media devoted to the activities of women intelligence officers convincingly indicate that in this specific area of ​​human activity, the fair sex is in no way inferior to men, and in some ways they are superior. their. As the history of the intelligence services of the world teaches, a woman perfectly copes with her role, being a worthy and formidable opponent of a man in terms of penetrating other people's secrets.

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE ADVICE

And in conclusion, here are excerpts from the lectures of one of the leading American counterintelligence officers of his time, Charles Russell, read by him in the winter of 1924 in New York at the gathering of US Army intelligence officers. Almost 88 years have passed since then, but his advice is relevant to the intelligence officers of any country to this day.

Counterintelligence advice:

“Female intelligence officers are the most dangerous adversary, and they are the most difficult to expose. When meeting such women, you should not let likes or dislikes influence your decision. Such weakness can have fatal consequences for you.”

Scout Advice:

“Avoid women. With the help of women, many good scouts were caught. Don't trust women when you're working in enemy territory. When dealing with women, never forget to play your part.

One Frenchman who had escaped from a German concentration camp stopped at a café near the Swiss border, waiting for night to fall. When the waitress handed him the menu, he thanked her, which surprised her greatly. When she brought him beer and food, he thanked her again. While he was eating, the waitress called for a member of the German counterintelligence, because, as she later said, such a polite person could not be German. The Frenchman was arrested."

The basic rule of conduct for a scout is:

"Beware of women! History knows many cases when women contributed to the capture of male scouts. You should pay attention to a woman only when you suspect that she is an agent of the intelligence or counterintelligence service of the enemy, and then only when you are sure that you are completely in control of yourself.

source- Vladimir Sergeevich Antonov - leading expert of the Foreign Intelligence History Hall, retired colonel.

The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, presents the Kosova Prize of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service for 2010 (for sculptural portraits of prominent intelligence officers).

- Did you have to recruit yourself?

No, they gave me ready-made informants. And they were usually women. Communication between two ladies, their “random” meetings in a cafeteria, a store, a hairdresser, do not arouse suspicion in anyone. Once I was invited by the resident and said that I had to conduct a secret connection with a valuable source. This woman worked in the delegation of one of the European countries to the UN. We were able to exchange information with her, even when she went down the escalator in the shopping center, and I went up on the next one. One handshake, a friendly hug - and I have the encryption. Thanks to this connection, the Center regularly received information concerning the positions of NATO countries on global world problems.

- Who else was among your informants?

Many episodes have not been declassified, and I cannot talk about them. In addition, the Americans were involved there, which even now can be calculated from my descriptions. Let me just say that I constantly kept in touch with an American woman working in an important government department. When I met her, she was extremely collected. Any oversight could cost dearly, not so much to me as to her.

- After all, it was the period of the Cold War, so that all Americans, probably, looked askance at you?

In general, the Americans are a very nice people, and they are like us Russians. They treated us with warmth. When they found out that we were Russians, they accepted us so sincerely! But I'm talking about ordinary people, but at the government level, everything was different. An atomic war was being prepared, and we knew for certain that around April 1949 the United States wanted to drop a bomb on Russia. And we were faced with the task of nothing less than saving our homeland, so that we could not think of anything else. American counterintelligence was furious. Every person from the Union was relentlessly watched. Draconian measures were introduced to move Soviet diplomats, the number of which was reduced to a minimum - the rest were even forbidden to leave the city.

In New York, I did not work on a technical job, but on an operational one. She was a liaison in the Barkovsky group (it was he who was involved in the atomic bomb). He gave me instructions - for example, to print a letter with gloves, to drop it in a certain place in another area, to meet someone.

- Did it happen every day?
- Of course not, as needed. In addition, I remember something happened to the operational secretary of our residency. She was hurriedly sent home. And I was assigned to carry out its functions. To do this, I had to learn how to type on a typewriter.

- Secret reports printed at home?

What do you! At home it was impossible to keep any compromising things at all. We never talked about our work or anything like that with my husband. If he needed to know whether I had successfully completed the task, I returned home and slightly nodded my head to him. We have learned to understand each other without words, only through the eyes. So even if there was a wiretap, we would not have split.

- Where was the residency?

At the Soviet embassy. Our room (where the radio operator was) was on the top floor, and theoretically they could listen to us from the roof. That's why they've always been insured. Used ciphers.

I used a car from the UN every day to go to the residency in the evening. And every morning I started the same way. By the way, I was also closed to our Soviet citizens working in the embassy. Officially, I was responsible for the archive of the economic department there.

- That is, in parallel, they led, as it were, one more life, a third?

Even the fourth (if you take into account the family, and I tried to be a good housewife). And I was also an entertainer for diplomats. Organized amateur performances, sang, danced. But then there was enough power for everything. Maybe because I was brought up in a family like that ... My father was a general, my brother was a general, and my husband also became a general. I myself am a senior lieutenant. (Smiles.) But the feeling of patriotism has always given me so much energy

Have you often been on the brink of failure?
- It's very relative. After all, every day in intelligence involves risk to one degree or another. Sometimes danger lurks where you don't expect it. I remember I had an unusual heart attack one night (we were then renting a dacha 120 km from New York). The husband called the doctor, but they sent a police ambulance, which was nearby. They immediately realized that I had problems with the thyroid gland, and decided to urgently hospitalize me. But in no case was I allowed to go to an American hospital.

- Why?!

There is such a thing as “talking drag”. Something like a lie detector, only a person is split with the help of drugs. They give pills and he answers any questions. Therefore, we, the scouts, were forbidden to undergo even a medical examination without the presence of our doctors.

Help "MK"

Intelligence officer Nikolai Kosov, among other things, was a brilliant journalist, vice-president of the UN Association of Foreign Correspondents. He was an interpreter for Molotov, accompanied Khrushchev and Bulgarin on foreign trips.

What task do you remember the most?
- Our illegal (such as Stirlitz) somehow had to meet with an employee of the diplomatic mission. He had already left, but a telegram arrived from Moscow saying that under no circumstances should this meeting be allowed to happen. And then there was outdoor advertising behind all of ours. Only American counterintelligence did not follow me. So I had to go. Although it was generally forbidden to leave the city, I broke through. Three days are generally being prepared for such a meeting. They look at which restaurant a person will go to, where they can check if there is a tail behind them. But I didn’t have time for all this, I couldn’t intercept him on the “route” and arrived at the meeting place. It was an extreme option, which could be resorted to in the most critical cases. And then a curly-haired guy comes out of the bushes. I immediately understood - ours! And he felt that something had happened, and stepped aside. And here comes the one to whom our Stirlitz came. I let him know that the meeting is cancelled. He first in any - as so! Barely convinced. And our Stirlitz jumped on the bus and traveled around the country for three days to make sure that he was not being followed.

- Listening devices, all kinds of voice recorders and video cameras did you use?

No, there was nothing like that. The reports were usually given to me in such small capsules (in the form of film). My Buick had an ashtray. In case of danger, I pressed the button, and the capsule burned out within a minute. Once I went to another state, carried a report. And then a policeman suddenly stopped me in the tunnel. I was about to burn the capsule, but he said that there was a traffic jam on the road and I needed to wait a bit. I was very worried then. Another time I broke the rules of the road. I thought that everything was gone (and before that, my husband gave me this thing to the cinema, where he had a meeting with an agent, so that I could take it where necessary). And again she prepared to burn the report, although it was very important. But then I say to the policeman: “Where is your street of brides?” She really was around. He told me: “What are you, a bride, going to a wedding? Well, then I won’t detain you, but don’t violate it in the future.” Actually, every time something happened. It was romantic and interesting. We were young ourselves then - and we liked it all.

“I started sculpting at the age of 50”

- Why did you decide to leave intelligence?

At the age of 30, I found out that I was expecting a baby. It changed everything. I decided to dedicate myself to him. My mother was sick, there was no one to help. And in general, I would not trust my son to anyone. Besides, I didn't want to give birth in the States. After all, according to local laws, he would then have to serve in the American army.

- I was sure that the scouts were bound forever ...

There is no bondage. I came and asked to be released for three years. And in the Center they offered me to quit, and then, if I want, to return when I want. I never returned.

- Have you ever regretted leaving intelligence?

No. In addition, intelligence has always remained in my life - after all, I was the wife of a scout ... And when my husband and I lived in Holland, I often noticed that I was being followed. We were then suspected: my husband was a correspondent in the States, and in Holland he was already a diplomat ... It doesn’t happen that way. But in general, I often had to help him. If they were at the reception, he asked to approach such and such a couple, get to know each other, talk, etc. But it was no longer work for me, but helping a loved one. In Moscow, we did not tell anyone that he was a scout. Everyone thought that he was just working for the KGB. They led a normal life and tried to be no different from others. It was supposed to be.

- And when did you discover the talent of a sculptor?

It happened unexpectedly when we were living in Hungary. The husband was a representative of the KGB of the USSR, and he had an extremely important mission. I remember when we arrived there, one of the diplomats said, since the USSR sent Nikolai Kosov, it means that something serious is being prepared. And I had a creative explosion. And this, mind you, at 50 years old. Now I tell everyone - do not be afraid to seek your calling at any age! Let my example inspire someone. My Hungarian teacher explained that my work is the output of the accumulated impressions received from intelligence. Perhaps, thanks to her, I learned to be extremely attentive, to remember faces, the smallest details, to see the inner spiritual essence in people.

She was the first to make a sculpture of Petőfi (the favorite writer of the Hungarians), she was immediately appreciated. They told me that I was a born sculptor. I became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, but they did not welcome me there. They heard that I was from the KGB (but then we could not say that we were actually from intelligence), and they avoided me. I don't know what they thought of me then. And then art historians began to say that my handwriting is unusual, I manage to convey the inner state of a person, they began to write about me in newspapers around the world.

- Is it true that you sculpted Margaret Thatcher and even presented this work of yours?

Yes, we met with her. And she liked the way I sculpted her. I was very pleased.

- If you had to choose between two professions - a scout and a sculptor - what would you choose?

Then, in her younger years, she was only a scout. I was (and still am) a patriot and dreamed of doing something for my country. But now I consider myself a sculptor and I ask my fans to perceive me in this incarnation.

- But follow the news in the world of intelligence? What do you think about the high-profile spy scandal in the States, in which your namesake appeared?

I follow as much as possible. And I will tell you that in intelligence everything is not as it might seem. The uninitiated will not understand me ...

- Do you think the role of women in intelligence has increased all over the world today?

It's hard for me to judge what's going on now. But women have always played a serious role in this matter. I think no less than men. Today, several of our female intelligence officers have been declassified. But after all, they all performed completely different functions and tasks, which indicates how broad the concept of intelligence itself is. Some scouts get confidential information, others provide security at conferences, others are engaged in recruitment, fourth ... Someone has to be, as I like to say, “in the hot trenches of the Cold War”, and someone successfully works at home. As for intelligence all over the world, in the services of different countries, women can be used in this matter in different ways. Somewhere really like bait.

- There was no desire to “make” Putin? He is still a former Chekist.

It is as a colleague that I perceive him. And, of course, I would like to fashion it. But there are already almost a hundred sculptures of him. And everyone continues to sculpt and draw it ...

- And who would you like to fashion now?

Husband. Then, perhaps, my sadness, which accumulates all the time, will find a way out. They say time heals. No, it only stirs up great anguish. So he died 5 years ago, and there is not a day when I would not cry and remember him. I sometimes watch today's films and tell you - we didn't call love what they call it now. We entered each other so that I sometimes did not understand who I was to him - mother, wife, daughter. He was the most dear person to me, although we, of course, sometimes cursed. We are probably from that ancient Greek legend about the androgyne, which was divided into two halves.

Russian Mata Hari

In N 23–24 For 2006, we talked about Major General N. S. Batyushin, who is rightfully considered one of the founders of the domestic secret services. With the outbreak of the First World War, he was still engaged in intelligence and counterintelligence, acting as quartermaster general of the headquarters of the Northern Front. Anticipating the possibility of a German offensive along the coast of the Baltic Sea, Nikolai Stepanovich took care in advance that our agents settled in port cities that could be captured by the enemy. One of these agents, who found themselves at the forefront of the secret intelligence struggle thanks to Batyushin, turned out to be a mysterious lady, a subject of the Russian Empire, who operated in Libau. Without the slightest exaggeration, it can be called the Russian Mata Hari.

Not a figment of the writer's imagination

DUE TO the fact that the archives of Russian intelligence during the revolutionary events were badly damaged, it is now hardly possible to establish the true name of this woman, as well as many details of her biography.

She entered the history of the great war under the name of Anna Revelskaya. In Libava, occupied by the Germans, she was known under the name of Clara Izelgof. By the way, those who have read Valentin Pikul's novel "Moonsund" certainly remember the image of this patriot. It is worth noting that Valentin Savvich, in his work on Moonsund, widely used German-language sources, including the memoirs of the heads of the Kaiser and Austro-Hungarian special services, Walter Nicolai and Max Ronge. The writer did not invent his heroine and her fate, he only embellished real events with some picturesque details.

The main merit of Anna Revelskaya is that she played a truly outstanding role in disrupting the German plans to break through the Kaiser fleet into the Gulf of Finland, and the death of an entire flotilla of the latest German mine cruisers blown up by Russian mines can be recorded on her personal account.

But first, a little background...

Generous gift to the British Admiralty

On AUGUST 27, 1914, the German cruiser Magdeburg, in thick fog, hit an underwater reef near the northern tip of Odensholm Island, 50 nautical miles from the Russian naval base at Reval. "Magdeburg" secretly made his way into the Gulf of Finland with the task of mining the fairway, and on the way back he was supposed to attack and destroy patrol ships and torpedo boats of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

All attempts by the German crew to remove their cruiser from the reef before the approach of the Russian ships failed. At dawn, the captain of the Magdeburg ordered the burning of secret documents, with the exception of those that still had to be guided. Therefore, two magazines of encryption codes with the key to their decryption were never burned. Before the ship's commander ordered his sailors to leave the cruiser and the miners to blow up the ship, the radio operator, following the instructions, threw a cipher magazine overboard, packed between heavy lead tiles. But another copy was lost in the confusion ...

Russian ships that approached the crash site of the Magdeburg picked up German sailors. Then the divers began to carefully examine the half-sunken Kaiser cruiser and the bottom below it. Now let's give the floor to Winston Churchill, who at that time was one of the Lords of the British Admiralty.

“The Russians fished out the body of a drowned German junior officer from the water,” Churchill writes in his memoirs. - With the ossified hands of a dead man, he pressed to his chest the code books of the German Navy, as well as maps of the North Sea and Heligoland Bay, divided into small squares. On September 6, a Russian naval attache came to visit me. From Petrograd he received a message outlining what had happened. It advised that with the help of code books the Russian Admiralty was able to decipher at least certain sections of German naval cipher telegrams. The Russians believed that the Admiralty of England, the leading maritime power, should have had these books and maps ... We immediately sent the ship, and on an October evening, Prince Louis (meaning the first sea lord of England, Louis Battenberg. - A.V.) received from our hands loyal allies, priceless documents slightly damaged by the sea ... "

German codes were too tough for Russian crackers

Alas, the British cryptanalysts (specialists in breaking codes), who achieved great success in deciphering enemy messages with the help of materials provided by the Russians, did not share their achievements with their Russian colleagues, repaying the allies with black ingratitude in the traditional manner of Albion leaders.

Russian codebreakers also fought over German codes, but to no avail. Kaiser's intelligence, which had an extensive network of agents in Petrograd, nestled even in the Military Ministry of Russia, was well aware of these futile efforts.

From the history of the Magdeburg cipher books, the capture of which the Russians could not turn to their advantage, the German naval command, headed by the pompous and smug Prince Henry of Prussia (Kaiser's brother), concluded that the Russian special services and their incapacity for major operations. This reckless conclusion determined the strategy of Prince Heinrich until the end of 1916, although the Russian Baltic Fleet, under the command of the talented admirals Essen, Nepenin and Kolchak, taught the Kaiser fleet a whole series of impressive lessons with the help of brilliantly executed minelaying, stretching literally to the very German harbors ...

Women's charms and men's naivety

NOW let's return to the Baltic States, where Anna Revelskaya operated. It is known about this lady that she came from a wealthy Russian family that owned lands in the Baltic states, graduated from a gymnasium and knew several languages, including German. She is described as a graceful and attractive woman, literally bursting with health.

Back in the spring of 1915, before the start of the large-scale German offensive, under the name of Klara Izelgof, she got a job as a waiter in the Libava port confectionery, often visited by sailors.

A few months later, German troops occupied Libau. The commander-in-chief of the German fleet in the Baltic, the brother of the Kaiser, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, moved his headquarters here. Following the overweight grand admiral, the ranks of his headquarters also moved to this city, and many of the German dreadnoughts stood up to the Libau berths. Kriegsmarine officers began to frequent the coffee shop on Charlottenstrasse, where they served excellent coffee, French cognac and delicious cakes. And soon a young German sailor, Lieutenant von Kempke, the commander of one of the towers of the main caliber from the cruiser "Tethys", fell in love with a pretty and kind confectioner Clara Iselhof, who lived alone, and so much so that he intended to offer her a hand and heart.

Clara allowed the lieutenant to stay at her apartment. Returning one day from a campaign, the lieutenant accidentally found his beloved dismantling all sorts of rubbish, among which were various things from the everyday life of gentlemen, including a men's travel bag with a set of all sorts of things, even mustache curlers. The lieutenant threw a scene of jealousy to the lady of the heart. Brought to tears, the confectioner confessed to the lieutenant that during the period when the Russians were in Libau, her admirer was an officer of the Russian fleet. In a fit of generosity, the German forgave Clara, because her tears were so touching, and her repentance was so sincere...

Without ceasing to sob, the lady said in a breaking voice that the Russian, leaving Libau in a hurry, forgot in the attic some briefcase made of expensive crocodile skin of excellent dressing, with wonderful nickel-plated locks and a lot of pockets, but for some reason she just couldn’t find it . The thrifty German really wanted to get this little thing of his predecessor. Having tormented a fan who was eager for “war trophies” for a week, Clara once handed him a bag with a victorious look, noting that, due to natural modesty, she did not look inside.

When von Kempke began to get acquainted with the contents of the briefcase, he was thrown into a fever: there were top secret schemes for the recent minelaying of the Baltic Fleet! The lieutenant presented the materials that had accidentally fallen into his hands to his command.

At the headquarters of Henry of Prussia, and then at the General Staff of the German Navy, they were subjected to the closest examination. And they came to the conclusion that the schemes are most likely genuine - this is how the Germans would arrange minefields if they intended to clog the Irben Strait for the enemy, leaving narrow passages for their own ships. Prince Heinrich inflicted a captious interrogation on the tower chief, concerning mainly the personality of his beloved. The lieutenant's answers, which boiled down to the most positive characteristics of Clara Iselhof, her sympathies for the Second Reich and her own matrimonial intentions, completely satisfied the prince. He promised the lieutenant a brilliant career if, with the help of these schemes, one operation was successful, which, as it seemed to the Kaiser strategist, could well induce the Russians to rush to withdraw from the war ...

Prince Heinrich decided to send on a combat raid to the Gulf of Finland, guided by the scheme of Russian minelaying, the pride of the Kaiser's Navy - the 10th flotilla of mine cruisers, launched from the shipyards just before the war. 11 pennants!

in a mousetrap

To check the reliability of the route, the Germans sent a couple of destroyers for reconnaissance, and they returned safely to the base. On November 10, 1916, the entire flotilla moved along the explored path, hoping to throw mines at the fairways of the Gulf of Finland, Kronstadt and Helsingfors and send everything that comes along the way to the bottom.

When all the ships were drawn into the "safe" passage indicated on the diagram of the Russian officer, something happened that the Germans did not expect at all: two destroyer cruisers were suddenly blown up by mines.

The head of the operation, captain of the first rank Witting, having sent one of the cruisers with crews picked up from the water to Libau, nevertheless decided to continue the pirate raid, writing off the explosion as an accident. He broke into the Gulf of Finland, but did not dare to go further and, having almost leveled the fishing village of Paldiski with artillery fire, turned back home.

And then it turned out that the “safe passage” was all pelted with mines! And when did the Russians manage to put them up again? Of the ten ships of Witting, only three managed to get to Libau, the rest were blown up and sank. So the 10th flotilla ceased to exist, having lost eight ships.

And the scouts and the trace caught a cold ...

ON RETURN from this inglorious path that turned into a trap, the Germans rushed to look for Clara Iselhof. They turned the whole Charlottenstrasse upside down in search of her, but to no avail: the Russian intelligence officer was gone. On that very night, when Witting's destroyers rushed to the Russian shores through the Irbeny, the Panther submarine, which secretly approached Libau, took on board a certain passenger. As the reader has already guessed, it was Anna Revelskaya ...

The further fate of this brave woman is drowning in the darkness of revolutionary hard times. We do not know whose side she took when the Bolsheviks took power and then the Civil War broke out, whether she remained in Russia or emigrated. This lady has remained an absolute mystery in the history of intelligence, we do not even know her true name ... But what cannot be questioned is the value of the operation carried out with her help to mislead the enemy, which in terms of effectiveness (the flotilla of the latest destroyers of the Kaiser Kriegsmarine, which was almost completely destroyed) generally has no analogues in the history of the First World War.

The history of scouts and spies has always attracted people. After all, it seems that such work is full of adventures and dangers. But history has confirmed that espionage is not exclusively a male occupation. Did women do this too? Why is their role hushed up, and in general there were few of them?

It was believed that the weaker sex could more easily split during interrogations. But they have other trump cards, purely feminine. Often the path to the source of information lay through the bed.

Among the names of spies, Mata Hari stands out, the recent scandal with Anna Chapman has again revived interest in representatives of this secret profession. Let's talk about the most famous female spies in history.

Mata Hari. The most famous spy of all time is Mata Hari (1876-1917). Her real name is Margarita Gertrude Celle. As a child, she managed to get a good education, as her father was rich. For 7 years, the girl lived in an unhappy marriage on the island of Java with a drinking and dissolute husband. Returning to Europe, the couple divorced. To earn a livelihood, Margarita begins her career first as a circus rider, and then as an oriental dancer. Interest in the East, ballet and erotica was so great that Mata Hari became one of the celebrities of Paris. The dancer was recruited by German intelligence before the war, during which she began to cooperate with the French. The woman needed the money to cover her gambling debts. It is still not known for certain what high-ranking fans told her, and what Mata Hari passed on as an agent. However, in 1917, she was captured by the French military, who quickly sentenced her to death. On October 15, the sentence was executed. The true cause of the death of the artist, perhaps, was her numerous connections with high-ranking French politicians, which could affect their reputation. Most likely, the role of Mata Hari as a spy is exaggerated, but the dramatic story about a seductive agent has attracted the interest of cinema.

Belle Boyd (1844-1900) is better known by her nickname La Belle Rebel. During the American Civil War, she was a spy for the southern states. The woman passed on all the information received to General Shtonevall Jackson. No one could have guessed espionage activities in the innocent inquiries of the soldiers of the army of the Northern States. There is a known case when on May 23, 1862 in Virginia, it was Boyd who crossed the front line in front of the northerners to report on the impending offensive. The spy was shot with rifles and cannons. However, the woman dressed in a blue dress and bonnet was not afraid. When the woman was seized for the first time, she was only 18 years old. However, thanks to the exchange of prisoners, Boyd was free. But a year later, she was arrested again. This time, a link was waiting for her. In her diaries, the spy wrote that she was guided by the motto: "Serve my country until the last breath."

Polina Cushman (1833-1893). And the northerners had their spies. Polina Kushman was an American actress, during the war she also did not remain indifferent. And she was eventually caught and sentenced to death. However, the woman was later pardoned. With the end of the war, she began to travel around the country, talking about her activities and exploits.

Yoshiko Kawashima (1907-1948). Yoshiko was a hereditary princess, a member of the royal family of Japan. The girl got used to someone else's role so much that she loved to dress in men's clothes and had a mistress. As a member of the imperial family, she had direct access to Pu Yi, a representative of the royal Chinese dynasty. In the 1930s, he was about to become the ruler of the province of Manchuria, a new state under Japanese control. In fact, Pu Yi would become a puppet in the hands of the cunning Kawashima. At the last moment, the monarch decided to give up this honorary title. After all, it was she who, in fact, would rule the entire province, listening to the orders of Tokyo. But the girl turned out to be more cunning - she planted poisonous snakes and bombs in the royal bed in order to convince Pu Yi of danger. He eventually succumbed to Yoshiko's persuasion and in 1934 became Emperor of Manchuria.

Amy Elizabeth Thorpe(1910-1963). This woman was engaged in Washington not only in diplomatic activities. The intelligence career began with her marriage to the second secretary of the American embassy. He was 20 years older than Amy, she traveled the world with him, not hiding her many novels. The husband did not mind, because he was an agent of British intelligence, the wife's entertainment helped to obtain information. After the unexpected death of her husband, the agent "Cynthia" goes to Washington, where he continues to help the country with cheap temptation and bribery. With the help of a bed, the Englishwoman obtained valuable information from French and Italian employees and officers. Her most famous espionage stunt was the opening of the French ambassador's safe. By skillful action, she was able to do this and copy the maritime code, which later helped the Allied forces to carry out the landings in North Africa in 1942.

Gabriela Gast (born 1943). This woman studied politics at a good school, but, having visited the GDR in 1968, she was recruited by intelligence officers there. The woman fell in love with the handsome blond Schneider, who turned out to be a Stasi agent. In 1973, a woman managed to get a position in the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany in Pullach. In fact, she was a spy for the GDR, transferring the secrets of the Western part of Germany there for 20 years. Communication with Schneider continued all this time. Gabriela had the pseudonym "Leinfelder", during her service she managed to climb the career ladder to the highest government official. The agent was exposed only in 1990. The following year, she was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison. After being released in 1998, Gast now works in a typical Munich engineering office.

Ruth Werner (1907-2000). The German communist Ursula Kuczynski was already actively involved in political activities in her youth. However, having married an architect, she was forced to move to Shanghai in 1930. It was then that she was recruited by the Soviet special services, giving the pseudonym "Sonya". Ruth collected information for the USSR in China, collaborating with Richard Sorge. The husband did not even suspect what his wife was actually doing. In 1933, a woman took a special course at an intelligence school in Moscow, then returning to China, she continued to collect valuable data. Then there was Poland, Switzerland, England... Sony's informants even served in the US and European intelligence. So, with its help, invaluable information about the creation of an atomic bomb in the USA was obtained directly from the project engineers! Since 1950, Werner lived in the GDR, writing several books there, including the autobiographical Sonya Reports. It is curious that twice Ruth went on missions with other scouts, who, only according to impeccable documents, were listed as her husbands. However, over time, they really became such, out of love.

Violette Jabot (1921-1945). This Frenchwoman was already a widow at the age of 23, she decided to join the ranks of British intelligence. In 1944, a woman was sent to occupied France on a secret mission. She landed by parachute. At the destination, Violetta not only transmitted to the headquarters data on the number and location of enemy forces, but also carried out a number of sabotage actions. The April part of the tasks was completed, the woman returned to London, where her little daughter was expecting her. In June, Jabot is back in France, but now the mission ends in failure - her car delays, the cartridges for the shootout run out ... However, the girl was captured and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which became famous for its brutal torture and medical experiments on prisoners. After going through a series of tortures, Violetta was executed in February 1945, just a few months before the Victory. As a result, she became only the second woman in history to be posthumously awarded the George Cross (1946). Later, the scout was awarded the "Military Cross" and the medal "For Resistance".

From left to right: Regina Renchon ("Tigee"), wife of Georges Simenon, Simenon himself, Josephine Baker and her first husband, Count Pepito Abbitano. Who is fifth at the table is unknown. And there is, probably, a waiter, always ready to add champagne.

Josephine Baker (1906-1975). The real name of this American was Frieda Josephine McDonald. Her parents were a Jewish musician and a black washerwoman. She herself, because of her origin, suffered a lot - already at the age of 11 she learned what a pogrom in the ghetto is. In America, Baker was not loved because of the color of her skin, but in Europe fame came to her during the Paris tour of the "Revue Negre" in 1925. An unusual woman walked around Paris with a panther on a leash, she was nicknamed "Black Venus". Josephine married an Italian adventurer, thanks to which she acquired the title of count. However, the place of her activity remained the Moulin Rouge, she also starred in erotic films. As a result, the woman made a great contribution to the development and promotion of all types of Negro culture. In 1937, Baker easily renounced American citizenship in favor of French, but then the war began. Josephine became actively involved in the action, becoming a spy for the French resistance. She often visited the front and even trained as a pilot, received the rank of lieutenant. She also financially supported the underground. After the end of the war, she continued to dance and sing, acting in television series along the way. For the last 30 years of her life, Baker devoted herself to raising children whom she adopted in different countries of the world. As a result, a whole rainbow family of 12 kids lived in her French castle - a Japanese, a Finn, a Korean, a Colombian, an Arab, a Venezuelan, a Moroccan, a Canadian and three Frenchmen and a resident of Oceania. It was a kind of protest against the policy of racism in the United States. For her services to her second homeland, the woman was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor and the Military Cross. At her funeral, on behalf of the country, official military honors were rendered - she was escorted off with 21 rifle volleys. In the history of France, she was the first woman of foreign origin to be commemorated in this way.

Nancy Wake (Grace Augusta Wake)(born 1912). The woman was born in New Zealand, unexpectedly receiving a rich inheritance, she moved first to New York, and then to Europe. In the 1930s she worked as a correspondent in Paris, denouncing the spread of Nazism. With the invasion of France by the Germans, the girl, along with her husband, joined the ranks of the Resistance, becoming its active member. Nancy had the following nicknames and pseudonyms: "White Mouse", "Witch", "Madame Andre". With her husband, she helped Jewish refugees and Allied soldiers to cross out of the country. Afraid of being caught, Nancy left the country herself, ending up in London in 1943. There she was trained as a professional intelligence officer and returned to France in April 1944. In the Overan region, the intelligence officer was engaged in organizing the supply of weapons, as well as recruiting new members of the Resistance. Soon, Nancy learned that her husband had been shot by the Nazis, who demanded that he indicate the location of the woman. The Gestapo promised 5 million francs for her head. As a result, Nancy returns to London. In the post-war period, she was awarded the Order of Australia and the George Medal. Wake published her autobiography White Mouse in 1985.

Christine Keeler (born 1943). The former British model, by the will of fate, turned out to be a "call girl". In the 60s, it was she who provoked a political scandal in England, called the Profumo Case. Christine herself acquired the nickname Mata Hari of the 60s. Working in a topless cabaret, she simultaneously entered into a relationship with the British Minister of War John Profumo and the USSR Naval Attache Yevgeny Ivanov. However, one of the ardent admirers of the beauty pursued her so persistently that the police became interested in this case, and later the journalists. It turned out that Kristin fished out secrets from the minister, then selling them to her other lover. In the course of the high-profile scandal that broke out, Profumo himself resigned, soon the prime minister, and then the conservatives lost the election. The minister who was left without work was forced to get a job as a dishwasher, while Christine herself earned even more money for herself - after all, the beautiful spy was so popular with journalists and photographers.

Anna Chapman (Kushchenko)(born 1982). This story became public only recently. The girl moved to England in 2003, and since 2006 in the USA she has headed her own real estate search company. On June 27, 2010, she was arrested by the FBI and already on July 8 admitted that she was carrying out intelligence activities. The girl tried to get data on US nuclear weapons, politics in the East, influential people. The press was interested in a beauty with the appearance of a fashion model. It turned out that Anna carried out her actions while still in London. She was in connection with a certain peer from the House of Lords and even approached the princes. The money for a luxurious life was brought to her by a business sponsored by no one knows who. As a result, Anna was deported to Russia.

The word "intelligence" is feminine, but she herself was considered a purely masculine affair. Even during the Great Patriotic War. In the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" the main character seems to be not the radio operator Kate, but SS Standartenführer Stirlitz. However, it was the heroine of Ekaterina Gradova, like her colleagues, who, playing on the “secondary roles”, made the impossible possible. This is on account of women the most dangerous intelligence operations, the most sophisticated moves, the most incredible recruitment.

In honor of March 8, the SVR archives were opened for MK so that we could talk about three Soviet intelligence officers known, alas, only in narrow circles. Each of these women had a special natural gift. One was a great singer, whom Chaliapin himself worshiped, the second knew how to be invisible and enter into any image (it was she who was entrusted with the assassination attempt on Hitler himself), the third had the mind of a grandmaster and a unique ability to convince ... But above all, they had the talent to love. To love so much that their feeling changed the political beliefs of specific people and the fate of entire nations. Three scouts, three feats and three love stories.

Some documents about them are published for the first time.

Shot from the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

Operational pseudonym of Farmersha. Secret weapon - voice

I look at old photographs ... They are almost a century old. And the young woman in these pictures seems to be from the beginning of the 21st century. A dazzling and luxurious singer who clearly knows the value of her talent. Are scouts really like that?

“Nadezhda Plevitskaya was one of the most talented,” says the historian of the Foreign Intelligence Service and holds out the sheets. “Here, read her diaries, they will tell a lot about her character.

Nadezhda talks about her poor peasant family, where she was the 12th child. About how hard she had to work as a child, but at the same time how she loved her village life. About how she began to sing in the choir to feed her family, how she went to the monastery, how she returned “to the world” ... And all this time she sang and sang.

And here is a description written by the NKVD. Judging by it, Plevitskaya was considered an emotional, inspired, sublime person, ready to devote her whole life to art. I have no doubt that this was the case. What is worth only this passage from her diary: “Russian song does not know slavery. And there is no such musician who could record the music of the Russian soul: music paper, musical signs are not enough.

- If you ever decide to write about her, be sure to listen to her songs - this was the covenant that Vladimir Karpov, an intelligence veteran, who, unfortunately, has already passed away, once gave me. He insisted that Plevitskaya was one of the brightest figures in intelligence. - A woman with a big heart and a wonderful voice ... Before she was attracted to cooperation, she said that she was an artist and sings for everyone: “I am out of politics!” And she really sang for the poor people, and for the royal family. Emperor Nicholas II wept when he listened to her.

“The sovereign was sensitive and attentive. The choice of songs was given to me, and I sang what I liked. She also sang a revolutionary song about a miserable peasant who ended up in Siberia for arrears. Nobody remarked to me. ... And songs about bitter and bitter, about the peasant's share, who should sing and tell, if not the king to his father? He heard me, and I saw a sad light in the royal eyes.

From the singer's diaries.

During the revolution, Nadezhda sang for the soldiers of the Red Army. And then she was captured by the White Guards, who took her abroad. General Nikolai Skoblin fell passionately in love with Plevitskaya, and she began to sing for the whites. Red, white - what's the difference for the singer? And again a quote from her diary: “With the same feeling I can sing both “God Save the Tsar” and “We will boldly go into battle.” It all depends on the audience." But in emigration, Nadezhda greatly missed her homeland. Abroad, she was a stranger even to some Russians: the wives of the White Guards, a peasant by birth, were not accepted into their circle even after marriage (she became Skoblina). Behind her eyes, they called her that - "man".

And the intelligence of the Soviet government needed sources of information among the White Guards in order to destroy the terrorist and dangerous ROVS (Russian Combined Arms Union) at all costs. They could not get close to Skoblin and recruit him either with the help of his own brother, or using close friends and classmates. The general was unshakable. And then they began to act through Nadezhda. I don't know how she managed to do the impossible. Maybe she sang Russian songs to him especially piercingly, maybe she cried at night about her longing for her homeland. But, probably, the whole point is that Skoblin loved his wife, like Russia, with all his heart and could not refuse her. In the center, he was given the operational pseudonym Farmer, Plevitskaya - Farmersha.

“To the head of the foreign department of the OGPU of the USSR. Reporting note. The recruited "Farmer" and his wife became the main sources of information. The main results of the work are that:

Firstly, he liquidated the fighting squads created by Shatilov and General Fock.

Secondly, it brought to naught the nascent idea of ​​organizing a special terrorist core.

Thirdly, he took over Zavadsky, the main agent of the French counterintelligence, and in addition to transferring information material, he exposed the agent provocateur, slipped to us by the French and working for us for 11 months.

Fourthly, he reported on the organization that was preparing the murder of the drug dealer Comrade. Litvinov during a visit to Switzerland ... "

Plevitskaya acted as a messenger. She copied secret reports that her husband brought home, wrote undercover reports. In general, Skoblin did not like to write and did not know how. And Nadezhda did this with obvious willingness, since for her it was an opportunity to show her literary talent as well. The center knew about it, and the Farmer's reports were read with particular pleasure. By the way, they were full of details that only a woman could notice. Here is another report to the center:

“Over the four years of cooperation with Farmer and Farmer, on the basis of the information received from them, 17 agents abandoned by the ROVS in the USSR were arrested. Established 11 safe houses in Moscow...”

Plevitskaya and Skoblin were arrested after the kidnapping of a white general, the head of the EMRO, Yevgeny Miller. The center decided that it was Skoblin who was supposed to set up a meeting for him, at which he would be captured and taken to Moscow for trial. And Miller seemed to have a premonition of such a denouement and left a note on the table: “Today I have a meeting with Skoblin. Maybe it's a trap..."

Intelligence historians say that if it were not for her arrest, then during the Great Patriotic War, she could become one of the best intelligence officers. The Nazis seemed to know this.

“There is every reason to believe that they poisoned her,” they say in the Foreign Intelligence Service. - And they did it after they saw the verdict and materials on her criminal case. It was written there that she was collaborating with Soviet foreign intelligence. She did not agree to work against Russia.

FROM THE DOSIER "MK"

Nadezhda Plevitskaya was sentenced in 1938 to 20 years for complicity in the kidnapping of Yevgeny Miller. The Gestapo captured the Rennes prison, where Nadezhda was imprisoned, in 1940. Soon Nadezhda died under unclear circumstances.

Operational pseudonym Zina. Killer for Hitler

Remember the scene where Stirlitz is talking to the pregnant radio operator Kat?

“- How do you think to give birth, baby?

- It seems that a new method has not yet been invented.

“…You see, women scream during childbirth.

I thought they were singing songs.

- They shout in their native language ... So you will shout "Mommy!" in Ryazan.

Anechka Kamaeva did not scream in Russian during childbirth. But it was she who was the prototype of the radio operator Kat.

“Director Tatyana Lioznova came to Anechka (we still all call her that) at home, asked her about her work in intelligence,” recalls a close relative of Anna Kamaeva. - This was already after she retired, but before she was "declassified". Anya lived in Moscow with her children, grandchildren and her beloved husband-comrade-in-arms. In many ways, it was with her husband, Mikhail Filonenko (and not only with agent Willy Lehman) that Lioznova wrote the image of Stirlitz. Actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov also came to visit them and became close friends with both scouts.

So, Anna Kamaeva. She is Zina. This operational pseudonym, by the way, is announced for the first time. Researchers cite such facts from her biography that show her originality.

- At the age of 16, she, a weaver at a Moscow factory, was nominated by the work team to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The Electoral Committee was surprised and turned down the candidacy, citing his obvious youth. And the second fact - in the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, Anna was included in the group of special tasks, which was personally subordinate to Beria.

For six years, the girl made a breathtaking career - from a weaver to one of the country's main military intelligence officers. How is this possible? Luck? Providence? Nobody can say for sure. Fighting, energetic, intelligent, smart girl. But were there many of them? Perhaps it's because of her unparalleled courage. She was not afraid of anything, and that's it. Anna was one of the few from the Special Assignment Group who survived the war. Although she was always ready to go to her death.

“From the very beginning of the war, a sabotage plan was developed in case the Nazis occupied Moscow,” says the veteran intelligence officer. - Every detail has been thought of. So, for example, they calculated that in the event of a victory, the Germans would want to celebrate it in one of the landmark buildings for the USSR. We compiled lists of such structures - the Kremlin, the Bolshoi Theater, the Moskva Hotel, etc. They were all meant to be blown up. Anya mined buildings both alone and in a group of other scouts. She knew all the intricacies of the mine business after completing a special training course. In parallel, she was preparing to assassinate Hitler. There were several options for how she should carry out the "assassination of the century." None of them imagined that she could survive.

BY THE WAY

All the scouts who mined Moscow in case it was captured by the Nazis then went to the front or partisans. And when it became clear that there was no need to blow up the city, other specialists took up demining. However, the “bookmarks” were hidden so masterfully that not everyone could find them. Some of the buildings have been demined recently! Among them is the Column Hall of the House of the Unions. A secret room, where there were several boxes of explosives, was found there after a member of a special sabotage squad showed the place.

Now think about what the girl should have been so that none of the military leaders doubted that it was she (and perhaps only she!) Who could kill Hitler himself by sacrificing her life. However, according to some reports, several such “kamikazes” were being prepared.

Then Kamaeva was sent to a partisan detachment. There she acted as a messenger, again mined (now bridges and railways), together with others attacked enemy headquarters.

Documents, documents... Many of the intelligence operations that took place during the war years were classified as "secret" quite recently. And thanks to this, it is now known how the radio operator-reconnaissance Anna undermined the columns, got out plans for offensives, recruited, and destroyed serious German detachments. The Nazis suspected the existence of a scout with unique abilities (capable of quietly penetrating behind enemy lines and blowing everything up there). Any reward was given for her head. But they couldn't catch her. Because of her, the Germans, already on the outskirts of Moscow, lost the remnants of their fighting spirit: “If one young girl can do this, is it possible to defeat this people at all?” The authorities reported about her dryly, but always submitted for awards (which were personally presented by Zhukov).

Report of the Commander of the Special Purpose Detachment of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD:

“Anna Kamaeva, radio operator. He takes a direct part in carrying out special large-scale sabotage actions against the Nazi invaders on the near approaches to Moscow.

After the war, Anna reincarnated again! From a partisan, she turned into a lady who knows several foreign languages ​​​​(again she underwent serious intelligence training). She married scout Mikhail Filonenko, whom she met in the reception room of Marshal Zhukov, where he came, like her, for an award. The couple was sent to Mexico, then to Latin America, Brazil, Chile. Anna was an illegal intelligence agent in Shanghai. All life is on the road. Airports, railway stations, new passports and names, meetings, passwords, turnouts, encryption to the center ...

“The children did not speak Russian at first and did not know that their parents were Russian,” says a family friend. - But when the scouts returned forever by train to Moscow, both - Anya and Mikhail - sang songs in Russian. The children were shocked: “Dad, mom, are you Russian spies?!” Then they quickly mastered the Russian language. By the way, Anechka was carrying a suitcase of money with her. These were… party dues they were saving abroad.

FROM THE DOSIER "MK"

Anna Kamaeva (Filonenko) retired in 1963. However, only the leadership of the KGB knew about her existence and her exploits. Her name was declassified by the Foreign Intelligence Service in 1998, immediately after the death of the intelligence officer. Anna's husband - intelligence officer Mikhail Filonenko - was the commander of the legendary reconnaissance and sabotage detachment "Moscow". Filonenko died in 1982.

Operational alias Helen. Agent Love Letters

I have letters in front of me. Hundreds of letters! This is the most wonderful and most touching correspondence I have ever read. And this is not at all the case when it is not good to read other people's letters. Scout Leontina wrote them from an English prison, knowing full well that they would pass strict censorship. Surely she would not mind if these letters were published in the newspaper of the country she was saving from a nuclear war.

“You can talk about Leontin endlessly,” the historian of the intelligence service begins his story. And you can see from the sparkling eyes that Leontine Cohen is one of his favorite heroines. - Imagine an ordinary poor girl who earned a piece of bread in America with what she could (housekeeper, waitress, factory laborer). At one of the anti-fascist rallies, she met her future husband, our agent Morris. She did not know that he was a Russian intelligence officer. And he, in turn, hesitated for a long time whether to talk to her about work or not. But soon they were informed from Moscow that Leontina was suitable for service. And Morris attracted her to his work. This happened about six months after their wedding.

NEW YORK RESIDENCE CENTER, NOVEMBER 1941:

“Characterization of Leontina Cohen. She has the qualities necessary for a foreign source: she is beautiful, brave, smart, has an amazing ability to endear her interlocutor. Sometimes it is overly emotional and straightforward, but we believe that this is a fixable matter. The main thing is that she is able to reincarnate and play the role allotted to her.

It was thanks to Leontina that a sample of the new American aviation machine gun was delivered to Moscow at the time. To do this, she recruited an engineer from an aircraft factory and persuaded him to take the weapons out of the factory in parts. The machine gun was transported to the center in a double bass case.

Once she entered a closed town where nuclear weapons were being developed, and took out secret documents in a box with paper napkins.

“At the station, the FBI carefully checked every passenger,” intelligence historians say. She shoved the box into the hands of one of the intelligence officers, pretended to rummage through her bag in search of a ticket. "Found" him, already when the train started moving. They hurriedly put her on the train without inspection and handed her that priceless box of “napkins”.

NEW YORK RESIDENCE CENTER, DECEMBER 1945:

“Leontina is inventive, resourceful, brave and persistent in achieving her goal... She treats intelligence work with the utmost responsibility, and is ready to devote her whole life to it. A little emotional. But it may well work independently in illegal conditions.

It was a new stage in the life of a "spy". Leontina was included in the residency of the legendary intelligence officer Rudolf Abel, where she provided a secret connection with those involved in the development of American nuclear weapons.

“In many ways, it was thanks to her that the Cold War did not turn into a nuclear one,” the writer Vladimir Karpov, an expert on the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, repeated more than once.

In 1954, Leontina and her husband Morris arrived in England under the guise of New Zealand businessmen from Moscow. And the center began to receive the most secret information about the naval forces of NATO, about the development of missile weapons. British counterintelligence spent a lot of time and effort looking for "Russian spies." But in the end, the couple was detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

These letters are the correspondence between Leontina and Morris. They were in different prisons in Britain, she was in the women's prison, he was in the men's. I read the letters and understand that the spouses did not extradite anyone from the residency, they never admitted their involvement in Soviet intelligence (although MI-5, the British security service, offered them freedom and a secure life in exchange for cooperation). But they confessed their love for each other in every letter ... They were allowed to write 4 pages once a week.

“Today is Sunday evening, very quiet. The only sounds from outside are mournful sighs and the creaking of beds in the next "cage". I can't stop thinking about you. I still remember how your eyes glow like two pale blue lakes filled with liquid flame. I hear the nearby guard turn off the light. Good night, darling".

“There was so much in your letter, dear, that I re-read it many times! I'm a little sick, but don't worry."

“If only we were allowed to write letters on 8 pages instead of 4! Maybe someday, like curlers and nylon stockings, this will be allowed when the staff is increased. Even if you are sick, I will still take the opportunity to kiss you again and again. What a pity I can't serenade you, my precious flower!"

“I hope the day will come when married couples are allowed to be in the same cell, but I’m getting used to the idea of ​​living alone in a cramped cage.”

Once a month (and then once every three months) they were supposed to meet for 1 hour. During it, the spouses were forbidden to touch each other. They could only watch, talk and drink tea while eating cookies. And these were the most romantic dates that the royal prison had ever known.

FROM THE DOSIER "MK"

In 1969, the efforts of the Soviet government and foreign intelligence were crowned with success. Morris and Leontina ended up in Moscow. Until her death, Leontina was a scout. Folders "owls. Secret, where materials about this are stored, are waiting in the wings. Leontina died in 1992, and in 1996 she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia "for the successful completion of special tasks to ensure state security in conditions fraught with risk to life." Her husband, scout Morris Cohen, was awarded the title Hero of Russia in 1995, posthumously.