Pavel Sudoplatov - Later Life

Later Life

He thereafter worked for some time as a translator, working in German and Ukrainian, and wrote a novel as well as historical items about his work during World War II.

After an extensive campaign, including a publicity effort during the glasnost era, he was finally re-habilitated and cleared of wrongdoing in 1992 a few days after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In his memoirs, he wrote about his rehabilitation:

"The Soviet Union - to which I devoted every fiber of my being and for which I was willing to die; for which I averted my eyes from every brutality, finding justification in its transformation from a backward nation into a superpower; for which I spent long months on duty away from Emma and the children; whose mistakes cost me fifteen years of my life as a husband and father - was unwilling to admit its failure and take me back as a citizen. Only when there was no more Soviet Union, no more proud empire, was I reinstated and my name returned to its rightful place."

In 1994, his autobiography, Special Tasks, based in large part on Sudoplatov's memory, and written with the help of his son Anatoli and two American writers, was published; it caused a considerable uproar. In addition to extensive details of many Soviet intelligence operations during Sudoplatov's career, and a similarly extensive discussion of the political machinations inside the intelligence services and the Soviet government, it claimed that a number of Western scientists who had worked on the atomic bomb project, while not agents for the Soviets, had provided useful atomic information; this has been heavily disputed. He was buried in the New Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.