The “godfather” of our “Stirlitzes” Yuri Levchenko: “There were no traitors in the intelligence corps”

03.09.2009, Marina Marchenko for “Novaya”
   “I didn't commit anything heroic. Neither threw myself onto embrasure nor searched Gebbels’s safe. I simply worked and simply lived. And if I did manage to do anything important for the country, it may only be spoken about in, let’s say, twenty years, or in a hundred…”

On the eve of the Day of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (September 7), we met Yuri Tymofiyovych, Major-General, retired, President of The Intelligence Veterans Fund. He was one of the Defence Intelligence founders and has dedicated to it over 30 years. He told us how this difficult thing was emerging in our Homeland, about his extremely secret profession, and a little bit about himself. To the spy community’s extreme annoyance, the founder of the Ukrainian military diplomatic service didn't reveal any secrets – neither of a state or personal scale.

Nevertheless, it was an interesting conversation. What’s so amazing about it? A true professional.

— Yuri Tymofiyovych, please, tell us what the Ukrainian intelligence service started with?

— On 7 September 1992, the establishment of the Strategic Defence Intelligence was authorized by the Decree of the President of Ukraine. My generation people, as well as those a bit younger, all came from the intelligence community of the Soviet Union General [Intelligence] Directorate. But when the independent Ukraine emerged, the question regarding creation of our own intelligence agency arose. At that particular point, no one possessed either experience or knowledge in building a state-level intelligence agency. The three districts that existed on the Ukrainian territory (Kiev, Carpathian and Odessa districts) had their own intelligence sections, but those were of a local type. The other thing that made the case even more difficult was the fact that the agency itself has always been a closed one. It is now that the intelligence officers are written about, whereas in the Soviet Union it was impossible to read an interview with a person of our occupation. The first intelligence officer that the country learned about was Richard Zorge. After that, people learned about Lev Manevich. A publication about Bereznyak (Major Vyhr) appeared even later. That is to say, the founders of the Ukrainian intelligence agency had no additional material or documents. In addition, save enthusiasm and strong ambition, political will was needed, too.

— Who was particularly involved in the creation of the country's defence intelligence agency?

— I'd give much credit for that to our first President, Leonid Kravchuk, to Chief of the General Staff (at the time), Anatoliy Lopata, and to the Minister of Defence, Alexander Kuzmuk. They have done their best for our intelligence agency to be established. Alexander Skipalskiy was appointed the first Chief of the Defence Intelligence. And within the group of those who were creating our Agency in the 90’s there were practically no come-and-go people. Everybody worked as a single organism, double tides. Everything had to be done simultaneously: the agency itself needed to be built, and the military diplomatic service in the embassies had to be set up.

— Can there be any come-and-go people at all in the intelligence service?

— Absolutely. There were traitors, too, but the Lord has spared our Ukrainian intelligence service so there wasn’t a single incident during the years of the independence. Unlike the history of the Soviet period. To mention Suvorov and Polyakov and several others who had gone public.

— How did you become an intelligence officer? Were you dreaming about it since your boyhood?

— It doesn't happen that some child dreams of becoming Stirlitz, whistling the tune from the “17 moments of spring”. In the same manner as many others, I found myself in the intelligence community by chance. There were no military servicemen in my family, neither were any troops stationed in the little town where I was born. Nevertheless, things happened in such a way that when I was a company leader in the rank of senior lieutenant, I passed a complicated selection process to become an intelligence officer.

— In other words, your destiny has found you? So, why did they actually choose you, what's so special about you?

— I’m extremely handsome and smart (joking). I wasn’t a child prodigy. I simply was a young lieutenant with standard biography. The selection process in each country is individual-based. Very few people know which system was used for their selection, so this is sort of a mystery for me, too.

— Where exactly did you perform your intelligence feats?

— I didn’t. Neither threw myself onto the embrasure nor ransacked Gebbels’s safe. I simply worked and simply lived. And if I did manage to do anything important for the country, it may only be spoken about in, let’s say, twenty years, or in a hundred…

— Why is that? How do they determine the time that has to pass before the feats in the name of the country could be opened for the public?

— When a person accomplishes a certain task, some time has to pass in order to determine whether a relation exists between the operation conducted in the past, and the present day. If there is no such “bridge”, the case may be spoken about. The way we now talk about the operation of rescuing the city of Krakow. And even that operation people learned about after 20 years. One would think, what’s so secret about it, why not tell about it at once? Every why has a wherefore…

When I was studying, we were taught by legendary people whose missions were as difficult, as those of Stirlitz, or maybe even more. There were scores of such people. They wore modest grey jackets, in nothing did they rise above the crowd, even though some of them were two times Heroes of the Soviet Union, highly decorated. Even on their deathbed they couldn't’t have told anyone about it, even their relatives or friends. Because some secrets have no time limitation.

— Tell us about your work then, whatever you can.

— I have served for 16 years in the Far East, and then here, in Ukraine. — I’ve made my way from battalion commander to field army deputy Chief of Staff. — I’ve been a deputy Chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine for many years. For two years I served as a military attaché in Slovakia. My service during the Far Eastern period was hard but interesting. The best boys of all those drafted into the army were coming to us, mostly from Ukraine. The physical stress upon them was enormous, i.e. drills, exercises, parachute jumps. The Far Eastern district where we were stationed was in constant combat readiness. Well, an army officer, especially an intelligence one can’t simply say to his inferior “do as I say”. He can only say “do as I do”. This means that he, too, must be able to jump with the parachute, do pull-ups and much more.

— And you’ve done all that, too? Including the parachute jumps?

— Well, sure… (laughing).

— Were the boys then better physically fit than they are now?

— I guess so. For instance, I’ve met a true drug addict for the first time when I was in the rank of Major (in the 80’s). There was practically no such thing in the military before.

— What qualities or abilities are of the biggest importance for an intelligence serviceman?

— Purely human ones. Those ones that in the past were capitalised on the posters for everyone to know: the sense of duty, responsibility, comradeship. Because when I was serving, there was no such phenomenon as violence against younger conscripts within the intelligence community. And not just because of the special selection. Boys will be boys, they were before as they are now. But at that time this boy knew, that should he be tasked with a serious assignment, he would never be able to perform it on his own. That’s why regardless to how much they have served, they carried each other’s back packs, rifles – you name it. In such a tight group violence against the younger ones can't exist in principle. On the contrary, the younger ones are looked after and helped there.

— Do you, personally, feel nostalgic for the bygone times?

— If a person manifested himself in the new life, he has no time to feel nostalgic. Many colleagues of mine having retired, you might say, in the prime of their lives (at the average age of 50) adapt successfully in the society. I have things to take care of, too: my job, the Veteran's Fund, my children, my grandchildren.

— Do they feel proud of their dad and granddad? Do they compare you to Stirlitz?

— They probably do, although they know very little, since I’m not telling. What’s there to tell about, anyway? A work is a work. If I were to become a teacher, I’d be a teacher. Or a construction worker. But I am proud of having become an intelligence officer, of having been chosen, and entrusted.

— So you don't wish you had a different destiny?

— No. As banal as it may sound, but if I were to choose once again, I would have chosen the same path. But the work is very hard. The young people today, those who watch television, films, read books (do they still read?) think of an intelligence officer as of some sort of a superman, some James Bond constantly having fun: whisky, women, and shooting from the hip… Quite the opposite, this profession is very hard, responsible, and exhausting. At first, for instance, during the “field” work, it’s very hard physically. One would think that the higher you rise up the career ladder, the easier it becomes. But it only gets harder instead, since the amount of responsibility rises, too. When our military diplomatic service was being established and I was in charge of training and sending people to work abroad, I was sometimes getting to the point where I couldn't sleep.

— In other words, whisky, women and shooting from the hip – that's not your case?

— I always followed one rule and taught it to the others: an intelligence officer ends when the first shot breaks. An intelligence officer should come, accomplish the task, and leave without being learned about. Intelligence officers that shoot exist only in American films. Well, in our films, too.

— Has your family always been with you? How did they withstand all the resettlements?

— Yes, the family has always been with me. Over the whole period of my service, my son and daughter went through 8 to 10 different schools. Times were tough, of course. In the Far East, I remember taking my little children to a 10-metre long road so that they could stand on the asphalt. But never mind, they grew up in a military environment, where the discipline is in the first place.

— So, obviously you were lucky with your wife, since it's not the easiest destiny for a woman to be constantly changing the place of living?

— Of course I was lucky. An intelligence officer’s wife guarantees not just 40, but 80, not to say 90 per cent success. When I worked in Slovakia, I had to meet the president of that country frequently. There he comes to the reception and says right away: “Where is my little Ukrainian lady?” — understanding my wife by this. So the entire atmosphere of the meeting changes at once.

— Speaking of the national cuisine, let me guess – dumplings? Does your wife cook dumplings?

— Why, she cooks everything. It is now that there is what to cook from, but when we lived in the Far East, my wife knew how to cook anything using just canned meat: soup, borsch, and stew – whatever. Nothing else there was.

— Yuri Tymofiyovych, the profession of a military serviceman, including the intelligence, has lost its prestige. Is there a way to restore its attractiveness?

— Some time ago the entire propaganda system was ruined. Today’s agitation only serves Ivanenko, Petrenko and others with them to be elected Parliament members. It’s the biggest mistake of all to hope that children will grow up by themselves as patriots of their country unless there is ideological education. Over the period of the independence, our country once having 5 film studios of national standing, didn't produce a single serious motion picture. I’m not even speaking of films about intelligence officers or, let's say, steelmakers or people of other trades. And nobody has taken those film studios away, they haven’t been removed from the country! To mention Russia, for instance, where they produce great motion pictures dedicated to intelligence officers, policemen, cadets. Because you know the number of children that wish to study in such institutions increased by 40 to 50 per cent after the “Cadets” series has been shown on TV. Although these films sometimes are too plainly-done, somewhere unnatural, but they are education-oriented. I hope we do come to that some time in the future.

Source: "Novaya".