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Iosif Grigulevich

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In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Romualdovich and the family name is Grigulevich.
Iosif Grigulevich
Josip Broz Tito (left) with Grigulevich in 1953
Born
Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich

(1913-05-05)May 5, 1913
Vilnius, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania)
DiedJune 2, 1988(1988-06-02) (aged 75)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR
NationalityLithuanian, Soviet
Other namesGrig, "MAKS", "ARTUR", "DAKS", Teodoro Castro[1]
Occupation(s)Soviet spy, assassin

Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich (Russian: Иосиф Ромуальдович Григулевич; May 5, 1913 – June 2, 1988) was a Soviet secret police (NKVD) operative active between 1937 and 1953, when he played a role in assassination plots against Communist and Bolshevik individuals who were not loyal to Joseph Stalin. This included the murders of claimed and actual Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil War, most notably Andreu Nin Pérez,[2] and an initial, unsuccessful assassination attempt against Leon Trotsky in Mexico City.[2][3] Under an assumed identity as Teodoro B. Castro, a wealthy Costa Rican expatriate living in Rome, Grigulevich served as the ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to both Italy and Yugoslavia (1952–1954). He had been tasked by the NKVD with the assassination of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, but the mission was aborted following Stalin's death in 1953.

After his return to Moscow, Grigulevich retired from his career as a spy (the details of which would remain secret until after his death) and established himself as a professional historian. He was employed as a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and published many books and articles on the history of Latin America and on the modern Roman Catholic Church. In 1979 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.[2]

Early life

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Grigulevich was born in Vilnius, Russian Empire (present day Lithuania), to a family of Russian-speaking Crimean Karaites.[4] His parents emigrated to Argentina when he was young. His father did well for himself and later sent Iosif to Europe to study.[citation needed] In 1933, he studied briefly at the Sorbonne. He was recruited by the NKVD and showed a gift for languages, soon picking up English, Spanish and French.[citation needed]

Secret agent

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In the late 1930s, Grigulevich was sent to Spain to monitor the activities of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM, the militia with which George Orwell served), during the course of the civil war in that country. Grigulevich worked under NKVD general Alexander Orlov, using the code names MAKS and FELIPE, and organized so-called "mobile groups" that killed, among other actual and suspected Trotskyists, POUM leader Andrés Nin. In this mission Grigulevich apparently collaborated with the assassin Vittorio Vidali, known in Spain as "Comandante Carlos Contreras."[5]

Grigulevich was summoned back to Moscow in 1938. In January 1940 he was sent to Mexico, under the code name "Yuzek," to take part in the first attempt on the life of Leon Trotsky, again working with Agent Vidali. In the wee hours of May 24, 1940, a group of Stalinist agents, led by Grigulevich and David Siqueiros, stormed Trotsky's compound at Coyoacán, near Mexico City. They missed Trotsky and his wife altogether and managed only to wound their young grandson in the foot. However, during the operation, Robert Sheldon Harte, Trotsky's bodyguard, was captured and killed.[3] The defector Walter Krivitsky managed to hear of this attempt and sent a warning to Trotsky through Dies Committee member J.B. Matthews. Trotsky acknowledged the warning. In a letter, he responded, "Krivitsky is right. We are the two men the OGPU is sworn to kill."[6]

After the failed attempt to assassinate Trotsky, Grigulevich and two of his accomplices (Laura Araujo Aguilar and Antonio Pujol Jimenez) were helped by Pablo Neruda to escape from the Mexican police.[4][7]

After Ramón Mercader killed Trotsky, Grigulevich was awarded with the Order of the Red Star.[2] Later, Grigulevich was sent to Argentina under the code name "Artur", where he remained during World War II and organized anti-Nazi sabotage operations. He married a Mexican woman named Laura Araujo Aguilar, who was also a Soviet secret agent, operating under the code name LUIZA.[8]

During the late 1940s, Grigulevich's cosmopolitan Lithuanian Karaite Argentine background made him a potential target by Stalinist authorities during the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans", and according to his later statements during Perestroika, he was in constant fear during this time. In 1948, Grigulevich's Mexican-born wife was taken hostage by Soviet bosses. While his wife was imprisoned, Soviet intelligence officials ordered several loyalty tests from Grigulevich, who was sent to operate a dead drop for another Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel, in New York City. Following this, Grigulevich was ordered to smear the reputation of the orthodox Marxist historian Lev Zubok. After completing these tasks, Grigulevich was provided with a new espionage post in Italy.[2]

Costa Rican diplomat

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The Yugoslav head of state, Marshal Tito (left), receives the Costa Rican ambassador, Teodoro B. Castro (right), on April 27, 1953.[9] Ambassador Castro was in fact a Soviet illegal agent, Iosif Grigulevich, who, under orders from Stalin and the KGB, was plotting to assassinate Tito.

In 1949, with the help of Joaquín Gutiérrez, a Costa Rican writer who harboured very pro-Soviet and Communist sympathies and who worked in his country's diplomatic corps, Grigulevich procured a false passport identifying him as Teodoro Castro Bonnefil, and settled in Rome.[10] Grigulevich pretended to be the illegitimate son of a wealthy Costa Rican coffee producer and styled himself Teodoro B. Castro (using a middle initial in the "American manner"). He successfully established an import-export business in Rome and made extensive personal contacts with business figures and prelates of the Catholic church. He also became a friend and business partner of former Costa Rican president José Figueres and in 1951 "Teodoro B. Castro" was appointed as chargé d'affaires of the Costa Rican embassy in Rome, serving also as advisor to the Costa Rican delegation to the sixth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in Paris. In 1952, he was appointed as ambassador to both Italy and Yugoslavia. In the meantime, Grigulevich was secretly granted Soviet citizenship and membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[8]

In early 1952, the Soviet intelligence services assigned Grigulevich the task of conducting the assassination of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who had broken with Stalin in 1948 over his insistence in maintaining Yugoslav independence from Soviet control (see Tito–Stalin split). In his role as the Costa Rican ambassador (he presented his credentials on April 25, 1953[11]), Grigulevich met with Tito on several occasions, but the death of Stalin in March 1953 interrupted the assassination plans. Following Stalin's death, Alexander Orlov, Grigulevich's former colleague, began to publish The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes. For fear that his identity would be exposed, Grigulevich was eventually summoned back to Moscow, marking the end of his career as a Soviet secret agent. In Rome, the sudden disappearance of the Costa Rican ambassador, along with his wife and daughter, created a stir, with rumors of Mafia involvement circulating in diplomatic circles.[8]

Historian

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In Moscow, Grigulevich settled into a new life as an academic. In 1958, he received the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences (the equivalent of a Western Ph.D.) with a dissertation entitled "The Vatican: Religion, Finance, and Politics". He then found employment as a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[2] In 1960, he received a Doctor of Historial Sciences degree (the equivalent of a Western habilitation to teach and conduct research at the university level) after defending a dissertation on the "Cultural Revolution in Cuba". He participated in the establishment of the Institute of Latin America and was appointed as head of a research group within the Institute of Ethnography.

During his academic career, Grigulevich wrote 58 books, some of which were published under his mother's maiden surname, Lavretsky (Russian: Лаврецкий), mostly on subjects connected with Latin America and the modern Roman Catholic Church. From 1976 to 1987 he was chief editor of the scholarly journal Общественные науки и современность ("Social Sciences and Contemporary World"). Grigulevich's great ambition during this stage of his life was to be elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences, considered the highest official rank for an intellectual in the USSR. However, his published work was regarded by many in the academic world as essentially journalistic. After extensive lobbying and trading in favors, Grigulevich finally succeeded in his fourth attempt to become corresponding member in 1979, but he was never made a full member of the Academy.[2]

The dissident Soviet historian Alexander Nekrich described Grigulevich as "a joyful and witty person, and, as some said, both generous and cunning, a man who did not believe in anything, neither in God nor in devil." It is also reported that Grigulevich enjoyed expressing the view that it was "prostitutes, journalists, and spies who ruled the world".[2] Colleagues were puzzled by the lack of any biographical information about Grigulevich before his 40s and by his refusal to be photographed. The details of Grigulevich's role as a Soviet agent were clarified only after the fall of the communist regime, particularly with the release of the "Mitrokhin archive" in the mid-1990s.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Andrew, Christopher M. (2000). The Sword and the Shield : the Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Vasili Mitrokhin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01003-5. OCLC 727648881.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Znamenski, Andrei (2017-09-07). "Joseph Grigulevich: A Tale of Identity, Soviet Espionage, and Storytelling". The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review. 44 (3): 314–341. doi:10.1163/18763324-20171267. ISSN 1876-3324.
  3. ^ a b Mexican, Tom Sharpe The New (24 January 2011). "Book links Trotsky assassin to Plaza pharmacy, now Haagen-Dazs shop". Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  4. ^ a b Boris, Volodarsky (2015). Stalin's agent : the life and death of Alexander Orlov (First ed.). Oxford. p. 366. ISBN 9780199656585. OCLC 869343535.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Thomas Hugh, The Spanish Civil War, revised edition (Harper & Row, New York, 1997) ISBN 0-06-014278-2.
  6. ^ Kern, Gary (2004). A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror. Enigma Books. pp. 291–292. ISBN 978-1-929631-25-4.
  7. ^ Volodarsky, Boris (2020-02-19). Assassins: The KGB's Poison Factory Ten Years On. Frontline Books. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-5267-3395-5.
  8. ^ a b c Christopher M. Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, (Penguin Books, London, 1999) ISBN 0-14-028487-7.
  9. ^ Prijem Teodora Kastra, poslanika Kostarike. foto.mij.rs
  10. ^ Marjorie Ross, El discreto encanto de la KGB: las cinco vidas de Iósif Griguliévich, (Farben/Norma, San José, Costa Rica, 2004) ISBN 9968-15-294-3.
  11. ^ Kolektivna predaja akreditiva diplomatskih predstavnika u Beogradu: grupna fotografija. foto.mij.rs
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