Mikhail Krutikhin: "Why didn't they take me into spies"

“I was once again called the“ former Chekist. ”Well, firstly, the Chekists are not former, and secondly, let me repeat the story already told here, explaining why they didn’t take me to spies, although they intended to do this several times,” writes the orientalist and the oil and gas expert on their Facebook page.

"For starters, an old joke that was told to me for the first time in the Bulgarian version.

Two brothers lived. One served as a policeman, but after the war everything worked out as well as possible. And at the second, although he fought in the partisan detachment, life and work went somersault.

- Listen, brother, how it turns out that you, fascist henchman, live funny, but am I inerton?

- Everything is simple. Are you in profiles what are you writing about me?

- I write that my brother served a policeman.

- Here you go. And I write that the brother is the hero -partisan.

In life, everything is the same. My brother -in -law (we were married to sisters) served in the KGB. Not a snot or an executioner, but along a technical line. He dreamed of making a career and becoming a general (the papa-lieutenant was only a colonel), but now and then he was bypassed either in his posts or in the ranks. And somehow, a friend in the frames confidentially explained: "It's all about your characteristic.

It turned out that at the KGB there was a whole dossier and even the nickname "Old Man". Back in 1966, my wife and I met in Moscow with the American professor Jim Bailey, a great specialist in Russian poetry. We walked around the city, and then corresponded. I sent him books on literary criticism, he was to me - Nabokova and Scott Fitzgerald. And in the KGB, Jim was listed as a spy.

When after the institute they called me into the army in 1970 and sent to an translator to Iran, they took the subscription that all unauthorized contacts with foreigners would be stopped. And I received oral suggestion on this occasion from some Colonel General in the Main Directorate of the Department of the Ministry of Defense when approving to a foreign exchange.

Swear even shown the translation of the letters that I sent to Madison. He, who was not familiar with English, was especially struck by my signature "Sincerely Your", which finally convinced the fact of betrayal of his homeland by her sister -in -law.

Years passed. When the youth once again jumped up the handhole on the service stairs, he again went out onto a friend-carrier and expressed bewilderment in his hearts: "Bear does not get out of the cordon, and I am soaring in the Mayors!" Having realized, the KGB decided to make me a disorder. Somehow my work in Iran ended in crumpled, and in 1981 I returned home after three in a row in a row (Cairo, Damascus, Tehran).

In TASS, they decided not to keep a disorder, but to vote on the Parkinson principle "pass up". All this time I did not suspect about my flawed status. Taking advantage of the fact that the position of a correspondent abroad was listed in the nomenclature of the Central Committee, I was able to send me to graduate school of the Academy of Social Sciences under the same Central Committee of the CPSU - as if to increase ...

After some time, Sobeak again began to fing off his personnel officers, and they agreed to double -check - not me, but Jim. And suddenly it turned out that from the very beginning there was an error. The CIA agent was not Jim, but a completely different Bailey, and even his surname was written differently. A typo in some report ...

In 1985, I was removed from the stigma of a disadvantage, returned to my former place, and I was able to continue reporting work abroad - again, with my complete ignorance of the underlying course of events. And my brother -in -law retired only a colonel. He was terribly lamented and in the moments of frankness still blamed me. From him, I learned the whole insubody of my dossier.

Jim also retired. I found him in Wisconsin via the Internet, and we sat in a glorious in our kitchen in Kuntsevo when he once again came to Moscow in the late 90s. It seems he did not believe in this story. "