Vasili Mitrokhin

Vasiliy Nikitich Mitrokhin (; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004), also known as Vasili Mitrokhin, was an archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offered his material to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Latvia, but they rejected it as possible fakes. Afterwards, he resorted to the UK's MI6 which arranged his defection from Russia. These notes became known as the Mitrokhin Archive. Between 1972 and 1984, he supervised the move of the archive of the First Chief Directorate from the Lubyanka to the new KGB headquarters at Yasenevo. While doing so, he made handwritten copies and immensely detailed notes of documents from the archive. He retired in 1985.

Defection During the Soviet era, Mitrokhin made no attempts to contact any Western intelligence services. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he traveled to Latvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy in Riga. Central Intelligence Agency officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could have been faked. The notes given by Mitrokhin to the MI6 revealed exposures about some unknown number of Soviet agents, including Melita Norwood; however, Norwood was not charged with an offence.

Publications

Mitrokhin, Vasiliy Nikitich, The KGB in Afghanistan, English Edition, introduced and edited by Christian F. Ostermann and Odd Arne Westad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper No. 40, Washington, D.C., February 2002.

Mitrokhin Archive

These handwritten notes of Mitrokhin are collectively referred to as the Mitrokhin Archive.

Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Basic Books (1999), hardcover, ; trade paperback (September 2000), Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages

Vasiliy Mitrokhin, KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook, Frank Cass & Co. Ltd (2002), 451 pages, Vasiliy Mitrokhin, "Chekisms", Tales of the Cheka, A KGB Anthology. "Чекизмы" The Yurasov Press (2008), 435 pages. (The book could be obtained from any copyright library).