Vladimir Pravdin

Vladimir Sergeevich Pravdin, or Roland Jacques Claude Abbiate, codename LETCHIK ["Pilot"], (July 1, 1905 – August 2, 1962) was a senior NKVD officer and assassin working in Europe during the Great Terror.

He later became a senior Soviet intelligence officer in New York and Washington, DC where he oversaw several important Soviet agents, such as Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, and Judith Coplon.

Biography Pravdin was born in London, United Kingdom, on July 1, 1905, as Roland Jacques Claude Abbiate.

From scraps of information about BLIN that arose from the brief breaking of the Russian code in the materials the U.S. known as the Venona project, the FBI concluded that BLIN "appears" to be I.F. Stone. However, Stone biographer Myra MacPherson has contended that the FBI was uncertain about whether BLIN was, in fact, Stone. She noted that unlike Stone, BLIN was identified as someone "whose true pro-Soviet sympathies were not known to the public...." The FBI also considered the possibility of Ernest K. Lindley, who better fit the profile of a "very prominent journalist" and/like Stone (and BLIN) had three children. Stone was already attacking Hoover frequently in 1943, and the FBI was of the view that "Stone is known to the bureau because of his hostile editorial comments made against the FBI as early as 1936."

In January 1948, he was hired as an editor at a publisher of foreign-language literature. In May 1953, Soviet intelligence briefly invited him back for intelligence work; however, that lasted only two months, and he was again laid off due to staff reductions. After that, he struggled to cope; he suffered from insomnia but was no longer allowed to visit the hospital reserved for Soviet intelligence personnel. His weight fell to 46 kg.

Anatoliy Golitsyn, another Soviet defector in the 1960s, claimed that Pravdin was active in Austria after World War II and often passed as a Frenchman. Golitsyn's claims are not supported by evidence.

Personal life and death Pravdin's wife, Olga Pravdina, also served in the KGB.

According to Mitrokhin, Pravdin's aged mother still lived in Paris, but he was forbidden from receiving any information from her after his removal from the intelligence service. Soviet officers passed his letters to his mother only occasionally. When he insisted on contacting her, he was arrested. His health and anxiety led him to commit suicide on 2 August 1962.