Operation Stonka . An Ultimate Deception Spy Game
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01611194.2011.583709
ISSN1558-1586
Autores Tópico(s)Polish Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoAbstract The article discusses a Cold War counterintelligence operation conducted by Polish and Soviet secret services against the Stepan Bandera Faction of the Ukrainian Nationalists Organization between 1959 and 1961. It emphasizes the methods implemented and used by communist security services, including signals intelligence, as well as the mistakes committed by the Ukrainian party. The article also briefs the measures related to code breaking employed during the operation. Keywords: Cold War espionageOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalistssignals intelligencethe Stepan Bandera Faction Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge Dr. Igor Halagida of Gdansk University, Poland, and Dr. Craig Bauer, the Editor-in-Chief of Cryptologia, for their comments during the preparation of the article. This research was funded from the Polish Government scholarship budget of FY 2010–2011 under the Iuventus Plus program. Notes 1Sometimes referred to as the OUN-R, for the ‘Revolutionaries.’ Anyway, the OUN was dealt a blow before the war as in 1938 Yevhen Konovalets, the OUN leader and a former commander of Sich Riflemen and UVO, was assassinated by a Soviet agent in the Netherlands. 2In 1965 Shandruk was awarded the highest Polish military decoration, the Virtuti Militari Cross, by Gen. Anders, for his activities during the September 1939 Polish Defensive War. He commanded the 29th Infantry Brigade of the Polish Army as a Colonel. On 23 September 1939 he saved his unit during the battle of Tomaszow Lubelski, when it was entrapped by the German forces. 3Communist Polish Public Security Ministry (MBP) existed between 1945 and 1954, and was then restructured into the Committee for State Security (KdsBP). In 1956, another transformation took place, and the Committee was turned into the Ministry of Interior (MSW). 4At that time, the Poles ran a similar provocation targeting the western intelligence services and the remnants of the western-backed Polish underground, which suffered heavy losses in Stalinist Poland. During the operation code-named ‘Cezary,’ a fictitious underground structure, the 5th HQ of the underground WiN organization was established, which lured the couriers from the West into a trap and was also used for disinformation and disintegration purposes. 5Surprisingly, the same special duty flight from the Mediterranean delivered Myron Matviyeyka, the chief SB OUN officer, to the Ukraine. 6He was an SB OUN member and its communications officer, who was air-dropped into Ukraine from an RAF aircraft in May 1951 and who acted as Bandera's envoy to reconcile various opposition groups within the Ukraine and to rebuild the underground structures. 7It is not impossible, as Dr Igor Halagida of Gdansk University in Poland has argued, that the main source for the Soviets on the scope of illicit underground Ukrainian operations at the time, was ‘Kim’ Philby (communications with the author of November 2009). Such a thesis is confirmed in [Citation2]. 8Before 1945 this area was a part of Germany, therefore it can be assumed that western intelligence organizations possessed good data on the local topography or remaining infrastructure. 9Michael Dzhiman, OUN cover-name ‘Levko,’ was born in 1920. Until 1939 he resided at his family's farm. Then, he attended a teachers’ school at Krynica in occupied Poland. As an OUN member, he was responsible for organizational issues. Between 1945 and 1946 he acted as an OUN regional Provydnyk in southern Poland until his arrest by Polish security forces. In 1947 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by a military court in Rzeszow, Poland. Dzhiman was released in 1952 upon the amnesty provisions and left Poland for North America. I owe this reference to Dr Igor Halagida of Gdansk University, Poland. It came out from the Polish files [Citation8, Vol. 2] that Dzhiman was a Polish security's double agent cover named ‘Kazik.’ However, he was described as an unreliable and biased source by the Poles and was further repressed [Citation8]. 10He was given one-time pads and conversion tables each to be used with two-way radio communications, blind transmissions reception, secret writing, microdots, as well as a separate cipher to conceal contact addresses and other personal information. 11The Polish Kwieciszowice train stop was known before 1945 as Haltepunkt Blumendorf of Deutsche Reichsbahn on the Hirschberg-Lauban railroad (now: Jelenia Gora-Luban). Although the line was degraded by the Red Army in 1945, as the second track was dismantled and taken away, along with the catenary, perhaps western intelligence services and the OUN, believed that the route's importance remained intact and that it provided a reliable mean of transportation to Jelenia Gora and beyond. 12These dead drops were located in the villages in south-east Poland, within a few kilometers of each other. 13Bandera was assassinated in Munich by a KGB hit-man Bohdan Stashinsky on 15 October 1959. 14Shpontak was arrested in Czechoslovakia in 1958 and was handed over to the Poles in 1959, who tried him in June 1960. His capital punishment was commuted to life imprisonment. Shpontak was eventually released in 1981. 15Gleser was eventually released on bail in March 1960, and he left Poland. Then, the Poles unleashed a hunt for him, but it is unattested in the sources, whether this succeeded. 16The abbreviation TW (Tajny Wspolpracownik, i.e., a secret collaborator) was a term in Polish lingua securitatis reserved for an asset recruited or turned by the ‘civilian’ security service, who voluntarily provided information and could be compensated for his or her efforts. 17She must not be blamed for surrender, as the Polish SB used her teenage children in the coercion. Following her recruitment, she was taken to Zielona Gora (formerly, Grünberg in Schlesien), while her children were looked after by a police officer's wife, and then she was taken home, where she remained under tight surveillance from Polish counterintelligence and the police [Citation8]. 18According to an official MoI training manual, which depicted the case [Citation5], the Poles learned in the 1950s that TW ‘Janek’ (i.e., Jan K.) and TW ‘Zbyszek’ (i.e., Zygmunt K.) were sought in the UK by the Polish Red Cross. Furthermore, in 1949, their contact data with a keyword phrase were found with the corpse of an OUN courier, Ivan Smarzh ‘Pimsta,’ who was killed in the USSR. The Poles used the keyword to contact Mr. K. in 1957 and then arrested and turned him as an asset under Polish SB operation‘Klucz’ (Key). He revealed that he infiltrated Poland in 1947 with two other people to become OUN sleepers. 19‘Dr. Pavlo,’ a.k.a. ‘Vak,’ believed to have been Grigoriy Vaskovych, was OUN's chief communications officer in Munich and a close aide to Bandera. 20 Slava Ukra'ini, i.e., ‘Glory to Ukraine,’ was a usual phrase in OUN's communications. 21The Poles also learned from their assets that there could have been other OUN courier teams in the field, like the undetected one led by Leonid Krupa, an OUN member, who allegedly illegally visited Poland in 1958. 22Cf. file IPN BU 00231/248 Vol. 57 stored at the Archives of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Cryptologia to view the free supplementary files.] Additional informationNotes on contributorsJan Bury Jan Bury received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Oriental Institute, University of Warsaw. He also studied at the universities in Kuwait, Tunis, Oxford, and Nijmegen. Currently, he is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland. His professional interests are linked to international relations in the contemporary Arab World, and non-military aspects of wars. Dr. Bury is also a member of the Editorial Board of Cryptologia.
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