First Chief Directorate - First Chief Directorate

First Chief Directorate

In March 1954, Soviet state security underwent its last major postwar reorganization. The MGB was once again removed from the MVD, but downgraded from a ministry to the Committee for State Security (KGB), and formally attached to the Council of Ministers in an attempt to keep it under political control. The body responsible for foreign operations and intelligence collection activities was First Chief Directorate (FCD).

The first head of FCD was Aleksandr Panyushkin, the former ambassador to the United States and China and former head of Second Chief Directorate in MVD responsible for foreign intelligence. Panyushkin's doplomatic background, however, did not imply any softening in MVD/KGB operational methods abroad. Indeed, one of the first foreign operations personally supervised by Panyushkin was Operation Rhine, the attempted assassination of a Ukrainian émigré leader in West Germany.

In 1956, Panyushkin was succeeded by his former deputy Aleksandr Sakharovsky, who was to remain head of FCD for record period of 15 years. He was remembered in the FCD chiefly as an efficient, energetic administrator. Sakharovsky had, however, no firsthand experience of the West. Having joined the NKVD in 1939 at the age of thirty, he had made his postwar reputation as an MGB adviser in Eastern Europe, serving mainly in Romania.

In 1971, Sakharovsky was succeeded by his 53-year-old former deputy Fyodor Mortin, a career KGB officer who had risen steadily through the ranks as a loyal protégé of Sakharovsky. Mortin was on top the FCD only for two years, when, in 1974, he was succeeded by the 50-year-old Vladimir Kryuchkov, who was almost to equal Sakharovsky's record term as head of the FCD. After 14 years in FCD Hq, he was to become chairman of the KGB in 1988. Kryuchkov joined the Soviet diplomatic service, stationed in Hungary until 1959. He then worked for the Communist Party headquarters in Ukraine for eight years before joining the KGB in 1967. In 1988 he was promoted to General of the Army rank and became KGB Chairman. In 1989-1990, he was a member of Politburo. The next and last head of FCD was born on March 24, 1935 in Moscow Leonid Shebarshin.