12th Chief Directorate - History

History

The 12th Chief Directorate was formerly known as the “Special Department of the General Staff”, and later – as the “6th Directorate of the Ministry of Defense”. It has been created on September 4, 1947, based on “KB-11” (in Russian: “КБ-11” - “Design Bureau 11”, also known in Russia as off-limits town “Arzamas-16”, later "Sarov"); its first chief was Major-General-Engineer (later – full General) Viktor A. Boliatko.

The first curator of this organization was Lavrentiy Beria, the then mighty chief of the Soviet NKVD. It is widely believed until today that if not for Beria’s personal efforts, neither the Nuclear Technical Service, nor actual nuclear weapons would ever be created in the Soviet Union. In fact, it was Beria who spearheaded the campaign for creating the USSR's own nuclear weapons program and who contributed to it, including supplying some nuclear technology stolen by his intelligence service from the United States researchers. For this reason, Beria is considered to the god-father of this organization. Even though for the rest of the Soviet Union Beria was declared an “enemy of the people”, relegated to “unperson” status and excluded from the 30-volumed Great Soviet Encyclopedia, he remains a highly revered figure within the off-limits structure of the 12th GU MO, and especially within its scientific research institutions. Beria’s portraits and statues are still maintained in some premises and flowers are laid to his statures on his birthdays and on some other occasions. Even in the post-Soviet times when the entire communist past was declared criminal, the alleged “top of the top communist criminal” Lavrentiy Beria continued to enjoy similar reverence among nuclear weapons specialists. For example, the 6-volumes collective work named “Nuclear Testing in the USSR” published few years after the USSR disappearance still features seditious Beria’s portrait first in this book, before any other photos.

The 12th Chief Directorate in its current capacity was formed in February 1959. Three years later the Organization managed to effectively and secretly delivered numerous combat-ready nuclear warheads of six different types to Cuba during an infamous strategic Operation Anadyr, a move that resulted in the most dangerous nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union. On the next stage of its development the Nuclear Technical Service was headed by General N.P. Egorov. The next and the most well-known chief was Marshal of Artillery E.V. Boichuk, who held this position from February 1974 until November 1985 and was credited with transforming the organization into the most effective nuclear weapons protection, delivery, and maintenance system. During his command the 12th GU MO lost its initial “warehouse image” and became a real effective branch of the Soviet Armed Forces, in some respects surpassing by its effectiveness of well-known Soviet special purpose forces such as “Spetsnaz” and the “VDV” (Russian Airborne Troops). The last chief of this organization during the Soviet Union was General V.I. Gerasimov.

The 12th Chief Directorate was re-created as a part of Russian Armed Forces on September 2, 1993, by a special order No.68 of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation. The first post-soviet chief of the 12th GU MO was General E.P. Maslin. In September 1997 he was replaced by General I.N. Valynkin. The current chief (from December 2005) of the 12th Chief Directorate is V.N. Verkhovcev.