Kevorkov Vyacheslav Yervandovich - Major-General of the KGB. Biography, best books

Vyacheslav Kevorkov is a KGB officer. One of the most famous employees of domestic special services, actively engaged in journalism after retiring. The author of several high-profile books - "Kremlin operetta", "Secret channel", "Confession before execution" from the series "Top Secret", "What do presidents say? Secrets of the first persons."

It was he who served as the prototype of Vitaly Slavin - a KGB officer from the TV series "TASS is authorized to declare." Has a reputation as one of the most mysterious personalities of the 20th century.

Youth officer

Vyacheslav Yervandovich Kevorkov was born in Moscow on July 21, 1924. After graduation, he entered the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. Now it is the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He has worked in Moscow on Bolshaya Sadovaya since 1919. To this day it is intended for the training of officers in various fields.

Among its graduates there are many well-known scientists. For example, academician and translator Yevgeny Chelyshev, as well as science fiction writer Arkady Strugatsky and actor Vladimir Etush. During the Second World War, he and Vyacheslav Kevorkov finished it.

By the way, at birth his name was Gevorgyan, which the future scout soon changed.

Service in Germany

Immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War, Kevorkov Vyacheslav entered the service as a translator for the Allied Military Administration, which was based in Berlin. Having proved himself well at this place of work, he moved to the General Staff of the Soviet Army. There he worked under the command of the Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasilevsky. He also took part in the processes to expose military officers who worked for the Third Reich in Germany.

In 1950, transferred to the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, which was then led by Colonel-General Viktor Abakumov. In the Ministry of Kevorkov, Vyacheslav took the post of an operative in the counterintelligence system. Over time, rose to the post of deputy chief.

Secret channel

In 1969, Kevorkov Vyacheslav played a key role in creating a direct communication between the leaders of the USSR and the FRG. The channel for secret communication was created on the personal commission of the head of the State Security Committee Yuri Andropov. Kevorkov became an important figure for the creation of this message from the Soviet side, bypassing diplomatic channels. Thus, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev and German Chancellor Willy Brandt had the opportunity to communicate directly, without the threat of leakage or wiretapping.

Later, on the basis of these events, Kevorkov published the novel The Secret Channel. Thanks to this communication, the leaders of the two European powers managed to hold talks, which put an end to the war on the European continent. The result of the negotiations was the signing of the Soviet-West German treaty, which took place in 1970.

This treaty confirmed the inviolability of the borders between the GDR and the FRG, and the parties promised to respect the integrity of all states in their current borders. Germany renounced claims to East Prussia, primarily to the Kaliningrad region, and the Soviet Union promised in the future not to interfere with the peaceful unification of Germany, if prerequisites for this arise.

Prototype of Slavin

Kevorkov was friends with the Soviet and British journalist Victor Louis, who was closely connected with the KGB and repeatedly performed the tasks of the committee in countries around the world. Also among close acquaintances was the famous writer Julian Semenov. He made Kevorkov prototype of the main character of his novel and TV series "TASS is authorized to declare."

In the film Slavina plays Yuri Solomin. Under the scenario, he is a KGB colonel who flies to Africa to deal with a CIA agent working in Moscow, obtaining information about the situation in the fictional country of Nagony.

In the course of the film, Solomin's hero turns out to be accused of murder, goes to jail, but still manages to hand over important secret documents and prevent a coup in Nagoya prepared by US special services.

Career in the organs

Meanwhile, Kevorkov's career in the security services went uphill. In 1972 he took up the post of chief of the third department of the Second Main Directorate of the KGB, which was responsible for counterintelligence.

The department had 12 divisions, each of which worked in a certain direction. The 3rd department was responsible for relations with the FRG.

In these years, largely thanks to Kevorkov, Soviet intelligence was able to expose the network of agents of foreign special services. To this end, Vyacheslav Yervandovich (at that time already a Major-General of the KGB), with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, created a security service.

It is known that Kevorkov closely communicated with the Chairman of the KGB Yuri Andropov, with whom he was well acquainted with the execution of special missions in Germany, as well as with Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. With the latter in many respects due to the ties with his daughter Galina.

Spyware Publicism

Serious journalism Kevorkov took up in the 90 years, after he left the service in the state security. It was at this time that he decided to become a writer Kevorkov. "The Kremlin operetta" became his first documentary novel.

It is dedicated to the events of the August 1991 putsch held in Moscow. There is not a single gram of fiction in it, all the facts cited in it are based on real documents, mainly on the materials of the criminal case against the leaders of the State Emergency Committee.

The novel contains many details that were not previously known to a wide range of readers. Particularly important is that the author himself was a direct participant in those events, he saw the whole situation from within. From 19 to 22 August spent most of the time at the walls of the White House. At that time, Kevorkov held the post of Deputy Director General of the TASS news agency, for this reason his activities were also suspected, which is why he was repeatedly summoned for interrogation, but he was not caught in anti-government actions.

The novel "The Kremlin Operetta" was published in the publishing house "Gaia" in Moscow in 1997.

The next work was the already mentioned "Secret Channel", which tells about the organization of special communication between the top leadership of the FRG and the USSR for the establishment of a peaceful situation in Europe.

House in Lubyanka

The next novel Kevorkova left after a long break only in 2005 in the series "Top Secret." This time it was devoted to the work of the counterintelligence department in the USSR in the 50s of the XX century. This is the 4th book, authored by Kevorkov Vyacheslav. "Confession before execution" is dedicated to the figure of Victor Abakumov. At that time he held the post of Minister of State Security of the USSR.

The book describes a mysterious and sinister building on the Lubyanka Square, which for decades frightened many Soviet citizens. What happened behind these walls, who was the main character? The author tries to understand this.

The Riddle of Abakumov

The main character of the novel is Victor Abakumov, the person is dark, not fully understood and understood by his contemporaries. During the Great Patriotic War he directed the main counterintelligence department "SMERSH". Later he was Minister of State Security. However, at this high post he worked only 5 years, and in 1951 he was arrested on Stalin's personal order. He was accused of treason and organizing a Zionist conspiracy in the Ministry of State Security.

Immediately Abakumov sentence was not pronounced and he lived in custody until the death of Stalin. However, after that, he was not acquitted and released. On the contrary, he was charged again. This time, Abakumov was found guilty of the fact that, under his personal order, the "Leningrad case" was fabricated . Under this general name is known a series of trials in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were directed against party and state leaders of the republics that were part of the USSR.

On December 19, 1954, a closed court pronounced a verdict in the Abakumov case, he was sentenced to be shot. The verdict was carried out in the town of Levashovo near Leningrad.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1997, the Abakumov case was revised. The verdict is retrained for military and official crimes, the shooting was replaced by 25 years of imprisonment.

What really happened remains unclear until now. About 100 volumes of the criminal case of Viktor Abakumov have not been declassified.

Legendary person

In 2010, the publishing house "7 Days" published another novel, the author of which was Kevorkov - "Victor Louis. A Man with a Legend." It is devoted to the mysterious and tragic fate of a friend of the writer, a Soviet and English journalist, who carried out assignments of the KGB.

Working for one of the best intelligence services in the world, he was partly an adventurer, an extremely resourceful person who always found a way out of almost any situation. So who was he really and how did he manage to obtain exclusive information for his reports and publications? Kevorkov tries to answer these questions.

Who is Victor Louis?

In this book, Victor Louis first frankly talks about himself. For example, as in 20 years was sentenced to 25 years in prison for working for a dozen intelligence services around the world, but managed to escape punishment, foreseeing the death of Stalin.

Here a lot of information about the scandalous memories of the daughter of the leader - Svetlana Alliluyeva, which Louis handed to the West. As it turns out, he worked not only on Soviet, but also on American intelligence. With his help, the overseas learned about the forthcoming resignation of Nikita Khrushchev and received memoirs of the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, who personally dictated it to the tape recorder.

All these memories were carefully recorded by Vyacheslav Kevorkov, with whom they were close friends. The author himself notes that during the life of Louis there were many versions and rumors about his work and fate. Many simply fantasized. The very same Victor told his life to the author already being seriously ill. Then Kevorkov and received permission to publish his memories after his death.

Victor Louis died in London in 1992, was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Secrets of Presidents

Another novel Kevorkova was "What do presidents say? Secrets of the first person." In it, the author narrates that problems with information leakage from the secret services existed at all times. For example, when the Soviet Union was negotiating with the closest US allies on NATO, which, in turn, demanded complete secrecy, special secret channels for special communication were created for this purpose.

At first, talks were held with Charles de Gaulle in this way, and later with Willy Brandt. Thanks to this book, readers for the first time will learn all the details of the Soviet-West German summits.

State Security Guide

Kevorkov worked not only independently, but also in the group. So, he took part in the creation of the collection "The KGB Guide to the Cities of the World". Among the authors are professionals in their field, Soviet scouts. They talk about work in different parts of the globe - Berlin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Delhi.

With the help of their frank stories, a wide range of readers are becoming familiar not only with the sights of these cities, but also the way of life and the nature of their inhabitants, the details of the operations that KGB officers conducted abroad. One of the storytellers is Vyacheslav Kevorkov. Books diverge in large numbers.

Care at Rest

Having finished with work in the state security agencies, Kevorkov went to rest. Today he left Russia and lives in Germany, near Bonn. From open sources it is well known that he still maintains contact with the German politician Egon Bar. In the 70 years he worked as Minister for Special Assignments and Economic Cooperation with the Federal Republic of Germany.

He, like Kevorkov, was one of the participants in the creation of a secret communication channel between the top leadership of the USSR and the FRG in 1969.

The Last Romantic

In 2014, Vyacheslav Kevorkov was 90 years old. On the anniversary of the famous scout, the state television channel "Russia" prepared a documentary program "The Last Romantic Counterintelligence".

The film was released on July 27, collecting a large audience from the screens. In the picture, many archival materials and personnel were used. The basis of the film was a detailed and candid interview of Vyacheslav Kevorkov himself.