Oleg Kalugin - Early Life and The KGB Career

Early Life and The KGB Career

Born in Leningrad and son of an officer in the NKVD, Kalugin attended Leningrad State University and, subsequently, was recruited by the KGB under the aegis of the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence). After training he was sent to the United States, where he enrolled as a journalism student at Columbia University on a Fulbright scholarship in 1958, along with Aleksandr Yakovlev. He continued to pose as a journalist for a number of years, eventually serving as the Radio Moscow correspondent at the United Nations. In 1965 — after five years in New York — he returned to Moscow to serve under the cover of press officer in the Soviet Foreign Ministry.

Kalugin was then assigned to Washington, D.C., with the cover of deputy press officer for the Soviet Embassy. In reality he was deputy resident and acting chief of the Residency at the Soviet Embassy. Rising in the ranks he became one of the KGB's top officers operating out of the Soviet embassy in Washington: it led to his being promoted to general in 1974, the youngest in its history. He then returned to KGB headquarters to become head of the foreign counterintelligence or K branch of the First Chief Directorate. During this time he received high honors for the assassination of Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov, which had been accomplished on a request from Todor Zhivkov and ordered by the KGB chief Yuri Andropov.