World

Vadim V. Bakatin, the last Chairman of the KGB, dies at the age of 84


Vadim V. Bakatin, a Russian libertarian politician in the late 1980s who overcame the obscurity of Siberia to enter the inner circle of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, then in his final days The last of the Soviet Union took control of the KGB with the promise of limiting its size and power. – only to see it reappear under a new name shortly after his resignation – died on July 31 in Moscow. He was 84 years old.

His death was announced by Russia’s state news agency, which did not specify a cause.

Bakatin took over as chairman of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s fearsome spy agency, in August 1991, just days after the failed coup against Mr. Gorbachev. At first, he didn’t want the job, but Mr. Gorbachev didn’t have many options: Many people with experience running military or intelligence organizations joined the effort to topple him, including pre-KGB leaders. responsible, Vladimir Kryuchkov.

Over the next few months, until his job disappeared with the Soviets themselves, Mr. Bakatin took on the enormous task of bringing this vast spy agency to success.

He split up its armed divisions and border guard unit, effectively cutting its personnel in half. He promised to stop spying on politicians, journalists and foreign officials. He even fired his own son, a KGB lieutenant colonel, as a signal that he would not tolerate autocracy or corruption.

He made a number of international goodwill gestures. He allowed relatives of Oleg Gordievsky, a famous defector, to accompany him to England after the Soviet Union prevented them from emigrating for years.

He reviewed allegations of Soviet involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (he found nothing, he said), and he gave the Swedish government dozens of related documents to the case of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who eventually disappeared. of World War II and is later said to have been executed in Soviet custody.

He met James A. Baker III, the US secretary of state, and even gave Robert S. Strauss, the US ambassador, 70 pages of detailed diagrams showing the Soviets wiretapping the US Embassy in Moscow. how, along with a major bag of these errors – a move that, even decades later, has tarnished Mr. Bakatin’s name among Russian nationalists.

He was much liked by Western reporters, who often compared his good looks to that of a news agent (he bears a striking resemblance to ABC’s Peter Jennings). Novelist John le Carré gave him long interviews, and William Safire, columnist for the New York Times.

Mr. le Carré was impressed with Mr. Bakatin’s thoughtful transparency, Mr. Safire less so. “He is seducing reformers and the Western press by using all the buzzwords we want to hear,” he said. Mr. Safire wrote.

Mr. Safire said something: Mr. Bakatin’s reforms were unsuccessful. He disbanded the KGB’s board but kept its members on the payroll. He promised to lay off thousands of employees but only let a few dozen people go.

He still believed in the Soviet Union, and he thought he could overpower the security agency without having to kill it. But he also faced intense pressure from within the government to keep the spy agency intact.

His counterpart in the Russian republic, Viktor Ivanenko, was a particularly stubborn opponent, and when the Soviet Union disintegrated in late 1991 – and with it Mr. Bakatin’s job – Mr. Ivanenko took his place. him effectively. He and his successors, including future Russian president Vladimir V. Putin, rebuilt the agency, now known by its new Russian abbreviation FSB.

Mr. Bakatin told the Russian newspaper Izvestiya in 1992: “It should be made clear that success is not achieved here. . “

“So,” he added, “I don’t think our special services have become safe for our citizens. No laws, no controls, no professional security services. “

Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin was born on November 6, 1937 in Kiselyovsk, a small city in southern Siberia, about 2,300 miles east of Moscow. His father, Viktor, is a mine surveyor, and his mother, Nina (Kulikova) Bakatin, is a surgeon.

He graduated from the Novosibirsk Institute of Civil Engineering in 1960. From 1961 to 1973, he worked as a foreman of large-scale construction projects around his hometown, an area rich in natural resources and busy with construction projects. mining activities.

He joined the Communist Party in 1964 and nine years later went to work for the party full-time. He rose steadily through the ranks, but by the early 1980s he seemed destined to be a regional official. However, he stands out for his efforts to reform Soviet industry, promote decentralization from Moscow, and limit economic liberalization.

His career took an unexpected turn in 1986, when Mr. Gorbachev dragged him to Moscow to serve on the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Two years later, he was appointed Minister of the Interior.

Mr. Bakatin told Russian journalist Oleg Kashin in 2008. “He was sure that I would never steal, and my weaknesses, my provincialism, were in his favor,” he said. Bakatin told Russian journalist Oleg Kashin in 2008. “Obviously, choosing me for this state position is extremely important, he believes. which I can easily control. “

Mr. Bakatin brought his reform agenda with him. He ended the use of paid messengers by the Soviet police, introduced hot food to prisoners held before trial, and resisted attempts to use his position to suppress dissidents.

Popular, handsome, and well-spoken, he quickly became a leading figure in Moscow’s reform circles, and he was seen as a future prime minister or even a successor to Mr. Gorbachev.

But when the country began to crack at the turn of the decade, Mr. Gorbachev had to support his right wing. He fired Mr. Bakatin in December 1990 and replaced him with two hardliners, Boris K. Pugo and General Boris V. Gromov. Less than a year later, Mr. Pugo helped lead the failed coup plot.

Mr. Gorbachev kept Mr. Bakatin close, placing him on his security council, a group of top advisers. In 1991, Mr. Bakatin ran for President of Russia Boris N. Yeltsin, allegedly at the behest of Mr. Gorbachev, who saw Mr. Yeltsin as a rival. Mr. Bakatin came last out of six candidates, with just 3.5% of the vote.

However, he is a good enough politician for Mr. Yeltsin to hold a grudge. He urged Mr. Gorbachev to make Mr. Bakatin head of the KGB and then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he offered to make him ambassador to any country he wanted, save France or America. Mr. Bakatin refused.

After leaving government, Mr. Bakatin became vice president of Reforma, a civic organization, and an advisor to the investment firm Baring Vostok Capital Partners.

His survivors include his sons, Alexander and Dmitri, and at least one grandchild.

Although his success at the KGB was limited and short-lived, Mr. Bakatin made at least one discovery that would make all his personal efforts worthwhile. In the agency’s trove of secret documents, he discovered that its predecessor, the NKVD, had arrested, tried, and executed his grandfather, a teacher, in 1937, just two months before he Bakatin was born.

Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting.



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