The main opponent was NATO8217;

Did you want to go abroad?

I did.

But the KGB was working officially in the GDR and the other socialistcountries. As one of your former colleagues said, the GDR is a province,from the perspective of foreign intelligence-gathering.

Probably. Actually, from that perspective, Leningrad is also a province. ButI was always quite successful in these provinces.

But this wasn8217;t like The Sword and Shield, was it? What about the romance ofintelligence?

Don8217;t forget that by that time, I had already worked in the agencies for 10years. How romantic do you think that was?

Intelligence was always the fanciest organisation in the KGB. The agentslived abroad for years. You could spend three years in a capitalist countryor four to five in the so-called socialist camp. Then you8217;d go for ninemonths of retraining in Moscow and go abroad once again. I have a friend whoworked in Germany for 20 years and another who worked there for 25 years.

When you come home for nine months between trips, you don8217;t fully integrateback into life. When you come home from serving abroad, it8217;s hard to getused to our reality. You8217;re more aware of what8217;s going on. We young peoplewould talk with our older colleagues. I don8217;t mean the really old ones whoremember the Stalin era, but people with work experience. And they were ageneration with entirely different views, values, and sentiments.

One of my friends worked in Afghanistan as head of a security group. When hereturned home, we grilled him a lot. Do you remember what it was like herethen? Everything that was connected to Afghanistan was a constant8220;Hurrah!8221; We all felt very patriotic. So we talked to him, and I asked himhow he felt about his work in Afghanistan. You see, his signature wasrequired for missile launchings. Without his signature, the decision to bombwould not be made. His answer to my question came as a shock to me: 8220;Youknow, I judge the results of my work by the number of documents that I didnot sign.8221; That really stunned me. After conversations like that, you startto think and rethink things. A person we respected was saying this.

These people were authorities in the best sense of the word. And suddenlytheir opinion was at odds with the customary, established cliches. Inintelligence at that time, we were allowed to think differently. And wecould say things that few normal citizens could permit themselves to say.What did you do in Germany?

The work was political intelligence obtaining information about politicalfigures and the plans of the potential opponent.

Is it correct to say you were involved in 8220;intelligence from theterritory8221;?

More or less, although that phrase generally means foreignintelligence-gathering from the territory of the USSR about othercountries, and we were working from the territory of East Germany. We wereinterested in any information about the 8220;main opponent,8221; as we calledthem, and the main opponent was considered NATO.

Extracted from First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Portrait by Russia8217;sPresident Vladimir Putin8217;, 5.60 pounds, Random House