Speaker 1: Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and
death spy stories and the amazing devices and operations that
made them possible. Now let's get started.
Speaker 2: To they're gonna be looking at Double Agent Dmitri Polyakov,
or Agent top Hat. Supposedly he is one of the
greatest spies of the Cold War era, and we're going
to be taking a look at him today. If you
want to support on our podcast, make sure to share
and subscribe. In nineteen eighty four, US spies monitoring the
Soviet press found an alarming piece in a Russian magazine.
It wasn't an expose aic officials in the Soviet Union
or worrying incount about Cold War attitudes. No, it was
a recipe for coot coot, a small waterbird that's common
in the so in Europe. For CIA officials, that meant trouble.
They had long in agreement with Russian double agent they
called top Hat. If you wanted to get in touch
with them, he'd indicate it by publishing the recipe. Was
top Hat actually in danger? As it turns that out
he was Soon after America's most valuable spy, Dmitri Poliakoff,
a Polyakoff Plyakov fell off the map entirely. For nearly
twenty five years, the Soviet military intelligence officer served as
the United states most trusted resource on the Soviet military,
providing reams of intelligence and becoming a legend. Poliakoff's documents
and tips and formed US strategy in China during the
Cold War and even helped the US military determine how
to deal with Soviet era weapons. Whose credit with keeping
the Cold War from boiling over?
Speaker 3: Question?
Speaker 2: Some asked, though, was Polyakoff a double agent or actually
a triple agent, one who kept the US on a
kind of a IV drip with false tips and misinformation?
And what happened to him after his sudden disappearance.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look back.
Speaker 2: At a little bit of history from Poliakoff, and then
we'll find that answer out. Piocoff was born what is
now Ukraine in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 3: After serving in World War Two, he was recruited by the.
Speaker 2: GRU the USSR's military intelligence agency. He wasn't the type
of man anyone would peg as a spy, so son
of a bookkeeper, he was unassuming father who did corpentry
projects in a spare time. On the surface, he was
a dutiful worker and a reliable gru asset, but as
he rose to the ranks of the agency following protocol,
he began to work to undermine the USSR itself. At
the time, the gru had agents all around the world
and was tasked with learning everything possible about American life.
The US did the same thing with the USSR until
Polyakoff offered himself to the CIA as a double agent.
It was really difficult for the US to get information
about the Soviet intelligence units, so when Polyakoff arrived, it
was well received because they needed somebody on the inside.
At the time, he was stationed at the Soviet Mission
to the United Nations in New York. Though Poliakoff was
fiercely loyal to the USSR, he was increasingly disgusted by
what he saw is the corruption and impending failure of
Soviet leaders, so he decided to offer his services to
the US. One CIA officer who worked with Poliakoff believed
his motivation to help the Americans stem from his service
in World War Two. In Times magazine, Elaine Shannon says
he contrasts to the horror of the carnage the things
he fought for against the duplicity and corruption he saw
developing in Russia. In Moscow, Poliakoff considered himself to be
a Russian patriote. The author Ronald Kessler, who we've interviewed
in other podcasts, The spy lived modestly and refused to
accept large amounts of money for his work. Instead, he
insisted on being paid only three thousand dollars a year,
and the money wasn't delivered in cash. Instead, writes Kessler,
Polyacoff accepted payment in the form of black and digger
power tools, fishing gear, and shotguns.
Speaker 3: It took years for the spy to prove his loyalty.
Speaker 2: To skeptical US intelligence officials, but once he began to
pass on information, mistrust turned to glee. Polyocoff provided a
dizzying amount of material received by agents during fishing trips.
You see, the spy as fishing rod, had a secret
chamber for information, tucked into fake stones and flashed via
radio transmissions. As a spy road pass CIA headquarters on
a US embassy trolley. The information he passed along and proved,
among other things, that relations between the USSR and China
were becoming increasingly tense. Many people don't realize that China
had their own perspective of communism and had their own
plans for kind of like world domination, but especially in
the Asian in the Asia area, they were looking to
dominate the Asian territory over there. They didn't really care
to get everything else. Russia, on the other hand, obviously
right next to China at one part, wanted their help,
but they also did trust them either, and this has
also provided an opportunity for the US to provide a wedge.
The US, in turn exploited those dynamics as it attempted
to resume a relationship with China. They kind of played
both sides. Piokoff also exposed the espionage of Frank Passard,
a British military officer who was caught selling secrets to
the Soviets. Biokoff was not only fearless, he was well
positioned within the Soviet military, where he rose ranks in
the gru year after year. He was absolutely at the top,
says a former CIA officer, Sandy Grimes in a nineteen
ninety eight interview. Because Poliakoff had access to so many
kinds of information within this with the Soviet intelligence machine,
he provided unprecedented information. In the meantime, Poliokoff took advantage
of his role as a top officer in the GRU
From his post in the US, he photographed massive numbers
of doc He obtained information face to face from dangerous informants,
and became a beloved asset to CIA officials, who gave
him the freedom to choose his own tactics and even
his own missions. Eventually, the information he passed along to
the US filled.
Speaker 3: Twenty five deep file drawers.
Speaker 2: As poliakov climbed the ranks of the Musian military, continued
providing invaluable information to US intelligence, But something happened. In
nineteen eighty, the double agent was summoned back to Moscow.
Then he suddenly retired and disappeared entirely. This unsettled members
of the intelligence community, who knew that the Soviets had
begun arresting and killing American agents. Though some insisted that
Poliokoff had simply retired, others worried he had been executed.
But then we fast forward to nineteen ninety. About a
decade later, in a paper called Pravda, which was the
Communist Party's official newspaper, and it proclaimed that Poliokov had
been caught in the act of espionage. Puzzled intelligence experts
argued about the purpose of the article, a rare mission
that some Soviet spies had worked on behalf of the US.
Does he lie in a trader's grave, as Pozdrev suggests,
or is he a secret hero? Well expert Thomas Powers,
an intelligence expert in the early times, Only one thing
about the Polio case is now certain, he says. Whoever
decided to publish the prodest story was certainly willing to remind.
Speaker 3: The world, the core world.
Speaker 2: The Cold War may be ending, but the intelligence war
goes on forever. According to Pravda of the newspaper, the
spy who had meant so much that the US had
been convicted of treason and executed.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: For years, the US suspected that Aldrich Ames, another American
double agent who was convicted of vestpionage against the US
in nineteen ninety four, had writted out Polakoff, But in
the early two thousands, official discovery that Ames wasn't the
only person who had contributed to the agent's downfall. In
two thousand and one, former FBI agent Robert Hanson was
accused of spying for Moscow, and FBI officials learned he
had betrayed Polyakoff as well.
Speaker 3: Hanson's a mission about Polyacoff's is a double.
Speaker 2: Agent had taken place at least five years before Polyocoff
was charged with espionage, around nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: Then, so the question.
Speaker 2: Asked now is was Polyocoff a real ascid or a
triple crossing spy who had sown discordant, dead freshal information.
High ranking intelligence officials maintained that Polocoff.
Speaker 3: Was the real deal. The guy was legit.
Speaker 2: This was a matter of tremendous courage, recalls Grimes, the
CIA officer. Former CIA director Woolsey agreed. What General Bolyakoff
did for the West didn't just help us win the
Cold War, he told the report in two thousand and one,
and he kept the Cold War from getting hot. So
it appears that Polyakoff did die. Now, who sent that
other letter with his information with his code? Well, that's interesting.
Remember I said, there was an alarming piece in a
Russian newspaper that had that recipe for the small water bird,
and that's common in eastern Europe. That was just about
the time they had found out about Polyakoff. Remember Richard Hansen,
it seems like turned him in right around nineteen eighty three,
he said, not sure when Alder James turned him in,
but in nineteen eighty four is when the US spies
monitoring the Soviet press found that alarming piece in the
Russian magazine.
Speaker 3: So it looks like.
Speaker 2: Everything fits the timeline, and unfortunately, Dmitri Polakoff probably met
his demise right around nineteen eighty eight. So again, one
of the Corold War's greatest spies and unlikely and likely
the most damaging mole in the history of Soviet intelligence.