November, 5 – Day of the reconnaissance man. Vladimir Kuzovenko – a life-time reconnaissance man.

November 5, 2010 // “Novaia”

November, 5 – Day of the reconnaissance man. Vladimir Kuzovenko devoted 35 years of his life to the profession. He has long learned the art of war. In 1944 Vladimir Fedorovich finished Kharkov armoured school No.2 and went to front being a just a boy. After the war he studied at the Military academy of armoured troops, had State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles in Frunze Military academy and State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles in Voroshilov General Staff Military academy. He got only high grades. When he is asked how he had managed to achieve such success, be in charge of so many people and perform complicated intelligence duties, Vladimir Kuzovenko is always laconic: “I wanted to be the best”.

He is the best even now. He could have driven any-class car, controlled combat mission or led a lot of people after him. But now his eyes fail him. His magnificent memory still keeps numerous dates, names and events, and at night he still sometimes has insomnia. Reconnaissance veterans fund don’t leave the veteran “in peace” – they always arrange different events and activities. Soon, thanks to the Fund’s help, Kuzovenko’s memoirs will be published. On November 7, Vladimir Kuzovenko celebrates his 85th anniversary. This day he will, as usual, receive congratulatory calls and telegrams from his numerous colleagues, friends and students. Each of them has received a part of his life and soul.. 

I became reconnaissance man after the end of the war. In 1947 I was appointed armoured troop commander. And when my staff comrades asked me whether I would go to serve in intelligence, I answered: “Yes, of course”. I took up the unit, and there it has all begun.

To my mind, the most important feature for the profession of intelligence man is patriotism and love for Motherland. Moreover, it is essential to be able to assess the situation quickly, analyse disembodied data about the enemy’s troops and report on your conclusions clearly in 10-12 minutes. It has been long ago, but I still can describe, for example, NATO’s state from memory.

A reconnaissance man has to work hard. I remember my being on the Far East (as Far East military district intelligence department commanding officer, 1977 – 1981 – M.M.), when I have been in the office for a month without even leaving it. Then, Chinese unleashed warfare against Vietnam, and we performed active reconnaissance. My agents exposed missile launchers in China and their location. Work was more than enough. Daily, I had a pile of reports on my desk - airborne surveillance, land reconnaissance, maritime reconnaissance, and communications surveillance; by morning I had to compile them to a two-page document. At 9 a.m., every day, I went to the commander-in-chief with three maps.

The tension was real hard, and I often had insomnia. I woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning, ran to the Amur, did my morning exercises, swam and returned home, after all that I went to work. When commander-in-chief, Tretiak Ivan Moiseevich, came to my office and saw I was sleeping in the work chair, he told me that it couldn’t work any longer. He ordered to put a couch for me in the neighbouring room and everything necessary for rest.

We had really high-class specialists in the service. Once they managed to intercept a radiogram in three ciphers. The first cipher code was alpha, superenciphered in beta, and the latter – in gamma. Our members - a woman and two officers - managed to unravel the text. The message composed the following: on such-and-such date, 1979, the head of the government (Kosygin was meant. – M.M.) along with his daughter Liudmila and her husband Gviashiani are going to fly to Thailand, we ask to arrange the meeting of Liudmila and her husband with member of U.S. Embassy.


At that time, Kosygin was vice-chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology and had information concerning all the secrets of the state. I went to make a report about that to the commander-in-chief. “Do you want heads to roll?” – he asked me. Then I took a pen and, despite his reaction, wrote a letter to the GRU chief about the data our specialists managed to decipher. In three days we met three generals on a visit to our unit. “What the story have you made up? It can’t be true”, - they told. But after they have checked everything, intelligence service centre specialists appeared to be true. After a while we found out that the daughter of Kosygin, Liudmila, who went with her father abroad as an interpreter, was appointed director of the Foreign literature institute in Kuibyshev, and Gviashiani has totally disappeared.

I have never solicited for posts and never bowed and scraped before the command. In people I appreciated and still appreciate truthfulness and honesty most of all. I inherited it from my father. He was boundlessly honest and has never taken anything inappropriate. When he worked at the distillery in Kazakhstan, we had no spirits at home. And if top brass came to his work to get hold of strong drinks, he came out through the window of his office to the garden, and his secretary told them, that “Fedor Fadeevich is inspecting factory’s facilities”.

I also had other examples before me. For example, the Kazakhstan Communist Party Central Committee first secretary, Mirzoian, near whom we lived in the pre-war years, went to work on foot, three kilometres a day. Moreover, he went without any guard. Such people were at those times.

When I was sent to the Far East, I came to the staff, gathered my subordinates and told them: “I came here to serve the Motherland. That’s why I can teach you everything I know. But keep in mind: I can’t stand toadies, lickspittles and careerists”. Despite this, there appeared sometimes such people, but I sent them to serve rather far off, on Kamchatka, for example. The Far East period was probably the most difficult time for me. It has been a vast territory, three thousand kilometres to the border, almost to the very Trans-Baikal. There were no roads then. I had two large planes (IL-20 R) at my disposal, which I used to fly to Kamchatka, Chukotka, Sakhalin and Kurils. We also had helicopters MI-8 and six planes (AN-2) for the special service brigade. Those were good and safe planes.

Though, there once happened an accident. I was going to jump with parachute for the last time, and set off with young guys-commandos jumping for the first time. The engine stalled, and pilot told us he could land only if it … was loaded. No one jumped and we all stayed on board. The pilot was squadron commander, a very experienced man, so he did manage to land the plane.

I have never been afraid of anything, even on the front fighting against fascists. I searched for the enemy and destroyed it. I fired gun myself, was always busy and there was no time for fear. But probably after that, when some time passed and I was able to think it over, some feeling appeared. But nothing else… No one has ever made me do something I didn’t want. Either when on my way back home (the distance was three kilometres) I ran in order to be fit, or when during the war I drew fire upon myself in order to help fifteen-year-old infantrymen. I had a narrow escape myself that time and got hardly wounded. And then I was a beardless lad. I was only 19.

The first time I was shaved by the Czech, and it happened as if on the occasion of the Victory Day. On May 10, 1945, we entered Prague. We spread tarpaulin just in the middle of the public garden and went to sleep – we all haven’t slept for three days already. By the evening, when we woke up, Mister Siuta (if I remember his name correctly) and his daughter came to us from the neighbouring house and invited to celebrate the Victory Day. The meals were rather poor, but with us we had confiscated from Germans provisions – yellowish vodka, bread as fresh as if only from bakery, a perforated one, and half-sack of chocolate. At this home I lost my adolescent “fluff”. The next day we were sent to Khotsyn to guard the airfield. The Czech guarding the airfield brought a small pin of beer and jugs to treat us with real Czech beer on the occasion of such a great feast.
  The Victory Day is the happiest day in my life (he wipes his tears and keeps silent for a long time to overcome the agitation). And in Kapushany (I remember that town in Slovakia very well), there also was such a story. I didn’t want to fire the gun at a magnificent ancient castle from red bricks. I felt pity for it. After the end of the battle, when everything calmed down, a woman of forty appeared. She came to me and started to fumble under my field cap. I couldn’t understand at once what was happening. As it appeared, she searched for horns on my head (Slovak is similar to Ukrainian, and I guessed what she was talking about). They were told that all Soviet soldiers were horned. After she had found nothing under my forelock, the Slovak went to the garden to dig up a bottle of wine she had once hidden, and treated us with it.

After many years, in 1972-1979, I was in Czechoslovakia but as central force command staff intelligence department commanding officer. At the reception in Milovitsa I met Gusta Fuchik, a wife of the famous journalist Yulius Fuchik (he tells with tears in his eyes again). She was a woman of small height and not very talkative. I told her that citizens of our country still hold her husband in remembrance, and she was very grateful for that. Gusta told me how fascists persuaded Fuchik to cooperate with them, but he didn’t agree, because felt profound respect for the Soviet Union.

I have gone in for sports for all my life. I finished physical culture school, swam a lot, lifted weights and even went in for boxing. I have passed all the levels of civil defence grades. When I was passing the last one and needed to run a 5-kilometre distance, the war was announced. My friend and I were at the stadium at the time.

After retirement (I was 57 then) I appeared to have arrhythmia. The doctor said that it was due to the decrease of physical activity. Then I started to wake up at 5-6 in the morning and walk in the Botanic garden – 10 kilometres a day despite the weather. In a couple of years I had no traces of the illness any longer.

Physical training is also very essential for those young fellows choosing the profession of intelligence man. But the main thing I want to wish them is to study and be patriots of the Motherland. One should treat personnel kindly and be a mentor for them, but not shout at the subordinates. Those were my pillars of life and I tried not to betray them.

Marina Marchenko

Source: “Novaia”