Unraveling a Secret KGB Investigation That Separated a Father and Son

SpyCast Alex Goldfarb Gold Cut

Sasha Ingber: Welcome to SpyCast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum. I'm your host, Sasha Ingber, and each week, I take you into the shadows of espionage, intelligence, and covert operations across the globe.

The Kremlin is not a fan of Alex Goldfarb. He left the Soviet Union as a scientist, becoming a prominent author and human rights activist. In 2006, he was in the room with ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, reading his dying words, which accused Vladimir Putin of assassination by radioactive polonium But today, Alex's memoir, Refusnik's Son, traces a complicated family history made clear decades later. His father, David, was a Jewish scientist denied permission to leave the Soviet Union, one of the so-called Refusniks.

David had been a prominent microbiologist in the '70s and '80s when Moscow's secret bioweapons program was developing. But only after an ex-KGB officer contacted Alex in 2010 did the whole reason for his father's confinement become clear. It's a winding story involving an anthrax accident and a media leak, a Soviet scientist, and a US journalist trying to help him. Two men pulled unknowingly into a tide of suspicion. 

Hey, Alex. Thanks for coming on virtually. 

Alex Goldfarb: Thank you for having me, Sasha. Nice to meet you. 

Sasha Ingber: So you were born into a prominent Jewish family in Moscow. You went to top universities. Why did you decide to leave the Soviet Union?

Alex Goldfarb: Oh, that was a time of turmoil. It was, uh, about 10 years, uh, after Stalin's death, and there was what was called a Thaw in Russia, and particularly in the intellectual circles and in the top tier of, uh, the scientific community, there was a lot of, I would say, turmoil. And my parents were pretty liberal, and the atmosphere in the university and in the laboratory that I joined after graduating, that was the Atomic Energy Commission Lead Institute, um, people were actually quite free, unlike the rest of the, of the Soviet people.

On top of that, my grandfather had been, uh, arrested and, uh, imprisoned, uh, in, uh, the Stalin's time, so, uh, the, uh, kind of negative attitude to the regime, it ran in the family 

Sasha Ingber: And on a personal level, there was also this sort of love triangle that could have ultimately led to some retribution against you.

Alex Goldfarb: That's right. Uh, at some point, uh, I got involved in a some sort of a romantic triangle with a very prominent functionary in the scientific hierarchy. My future wife happens to be a graduate student of a very powerful figure in the Soviet scientific establishment. It was the vice president of the Soviet Academy for Biology, Professor Yuri Ovchinnikov, who was rumored to be behind the secret biological weapons program.

So he was very powerful, and he was pursuing my, my girlfriend at the time, and, uh, we, uh, kind of felt quite helpless against his advances and decided that it would be better for both of us to leave the country. 

Sasha Ingber: And what did your father, who was also a scientist, say when you told him that you wanted to leave?

Alex Goldfarb: Well, my fa- father, he said because y- your, your girlfriend was his, uh, graduate student, you may, you may be, uh, refused. So we applied for a visa, and in the short term we were refused initially, and I did join the, uh, ranks of the dissident movement. And, um, in about two years, we got the permission, uh, to leave, and we left.

Sasha Ingber: So you moved to Israel, then to Germany, and you eventually moved to the United States in 1981. And in New York City, you receive an unexpected and rather notable visitor, someone who you think is likely from the CIA. What did that person ask you? 

Alex Goldfarb: It was the time of a very big debate within the American intelligence and political leadership with regard to the suspected Soviet biological warfare program.

And that was triggered by an outbreak of anthrax, uh, which happened in 1979 in the rural city of Yekaterinburg. There was a leak from the biological weapons facility, and, uh, about 100 people died because of those, uh, spores, uh, being spread through the wind, through the air. And, uh, there was a debate here in the United States where the intelligence community, uh, insisted that the Soviets, uh, violated the international biological weapons conventions while the, a very prominent group of, uh, biologists argued against that, said that this is the sort of, uh, ploy, uh, by the military and the CIA to restart the program, which was not going on in the United States, and they accepted the Soviet explanation that that outbreak was of natural origins.

So there was a debate, and the CIA was desperate to find out what was going on. And, um, uh, through the grapevine, uh, it became known that there was a new arrival from, uh, the Soviet Union, me, namely, uh, who is a biologist. So this guy came to me and started to ask whether I or my father, uh, know anything about that.

And I told them quite honestly that we know nothing about, uh, biological secrets, uh, otherwise I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be sitting here. And he left quite disappointed that I couldn't provide any information. But, uh, that visit prompted me to write a letter to Professor Ovchinnikov, the ex-boss of my wife, uh, whom everybody suspected to be involved in that weapons program, to ask him to help my father, because by that time, my father was already also asking for permission to leave and was, uh, refused Of all the people in Russia, he is the best to know that my father had no knowledge of any secrets.

Sasha Ingber: And what did he say? 

Alex Goldfarb: He called my father in, into his office at the Academy of Sciences, and said, "Tell your son to stop this because he may hurt himself, me, you, and everybody else. He doesn't know what he's dealing with." 

Sasha Ingber: Now, did the CIA ever approach your father in Moscow directly? 

Alex Goldfarb: No, no, no, no. They never approached my father.

Although the KGB, the Soviet, uh, intelligence and counterintelligence people believed that they did. 

Sasha Ingber: Meanwhile, the KGB was searching for who might have leaked this information on the anthrax accident to a newspaper in West Germany, and so your father ultimately was part of where the suspicion lay. But really it was years later when you were contacted by an ex-KGB officer named Sergei in 2010 that some of these pieces start to come together.

What did he initially say when he reached out to you? 

Alex Goldfarb: This person, his name was Sergei Bezrukov. It was, uh, 10 years after my father died, and he wrote to me saying that he want to correct the story. And, uh, everybody, uh, in the press were saying that my father was totally innocent bystander, whereas Sergei said it's all not true.

He said had investigated my father back in 1982-83 on suspicion of being a s- CIA spy, and they genuinely believed that he was spying for the CIA, and he was, uh, betraying those biological weapons secrets to the Americans. 

Sasha Ingber: Did you have any concern that maybe this was some Kremlin plot to try to lure you to another country, that, that there was some ulterior motive here?

Alex Goldfarb: Well, he reached me, uh, 20 years later, uh, when the Soviet Union had, uh, already collapsed and, uh, uh, relatively, uh, kind of relaxed times, uh, started in Russia, so I didn't see any danger. And Sergei told me that he is a defector, that he has left, uh, the service and defected to, uh, the Americans and was settled in Germany, in Dusseldorf, and, uh, he wanted to tell me the story.

So I just hopped on the plane and flew to Dusseldorf and met him, and he told me the whole thing. 

Sasha Ingber: Tell us more about who Sergei was, what he was doing when he was working with the KGB

Alex Goldfarb: Well, Sergei was about my age, and, he started his career in the KGB as a field officer in the Moscow regional KGB administration. My father's case was his first, was his first, uh, case actually. He did everything that, uh, he was taught in the spy school. He planted, uh, listening devices in my father's apartment. He checked his mail. They opened all his mail. He moved, uh, known informers into my father's immediate, uh, circle, and he started building a file with the aim of, uh, uh, uh, collecting proof or, or that my father is actually an American spy.

Sasha Ingber: So this story of what Sergei did in terms of investigating your father, David, is now unfolding, and you learn that your father unknowingly introduced Vasya, your friend who's secretly working for the KGB, to Nick Daniloff, this US journalist who is working in Moscow. And this is a special position because correspondents can use American diplomatic pouches to transfer mail.

He ends up being the go-between between your father and you as you're waiting for your father to hopefully get out of the Soviet Union. And Daniloff ends up ultimately getting caught in the crosshairs between the KGB and the CIA based on a letter. Can you tell us about that letter and how this unfolded?

Alex Goldfarb: Daniloff received a letter It was, uh, dropped into his mailbox in Moscow. He was the bureau chief for US News and World Report. The envelope was addressed to the US ambassador, and Nick, uh, opened the envelope and found some notes there, which obviously were of technical nature related to, uh, Soviet missile program.

So he was contemplating what to do with it, but eventually he brought it to the embassy, gave it to the diplomats, and wanted to forget all about this. But in a couple of months, he was called into the embassy and interviewed by a CIA station chief, actually. His name was Murat Natirboff. So, um, the station chief told, uh, Nick that these notes were in the same handwriting of a person whom the CIA was trying to contact for a few years by then.

Three or two years before, that same source sent out a, a notebook filled with, uh, missile information about the Soviet missile program through a different American correspondent, and the CIA was never able to contact that source. But that source, they concluded, was a very knowledgeable and well-placed scientist in the, in their weapons, uh, program.

So they asked Nick Daniloff to tell who he thought might have been the source of that envelope. And Nick told them the name and, uh, gave them the phone number And the next thing what happened is that the Moscow CIA station contact the name of Nick Daniloff's, uh, local Moscow acquaintance who happened to be a priest.

And they, the CIA came actually to him and gave him a note, uh, saying that thank you for the information and giving him instruction how to contact the CIA in Moscow. 

Sasha Ingber: And yet this man was not just a priest. 

Alex Goldfarb: This man was a priest, but he was a low level KGB informer. He was not the source of the missile information.

He was not the one who dropped the envelope. It was a total, you know, screw up by, uh, by the Moscow station. They, they contact the wrong person, which they believed was the source of the envelope. And in doing so, they compromised Nick Daniloff because in that letter that the CIA delivered to the priest, they mentioned Nick Daniloff.

Two years later, in 1986, when Nick was finally arrested in Moscow, uh, they, uh, the KGB produced that CIA late letter that they gave to the priest, uh, compromising him. And that was the evidence, uh, against Nick. And Nick, obviously as a correspondent, he didn't have any diplomatic immunity, and the KGB threatened to jail him for the next 25 years for being a go-between between the CIA and a suspected, uh, Moscow source.

Sasha Ingber: So this was ultimately the result of poor CIA tradecraft that exposed someone who wasn't actually working for them. Setting the context for this time, though, the CIA had sources in the Soviet Union who were being executed because this was also the same time as Aldrich Ames, who was divulging the identities of people to the Soviet Union.

Can we spend a moment talking about how desperate the CIA was to get information to establish sources? 

Alex Goldfarb: Uh, they suspected that there was a traitor somewhere within the CIA, but they didn't know who it was. Nonetheless, when, uh, this, uh, note arrived, they were desperate to protect this an- anonymous source.

So they actually cut corners and, uh, bended the procedure and forgot about, uh, the rules of the tradecraft. 

Sasha Ingber: When we come back, how the KGB secretly investigated Alex Goldfarb's father

Before Danilov is arrested, your father refuses to be part of a plan to incriminate Danilov. 

Alex Goldfarb: Well, at one point in 1984, uh, my father was contacted by the KGB, and he was told, "You want to get a visa out of the Soviet Union? Here's the deal. You call Nick Danilov to your apartment, and you give him an envelope that we provide, and then you'll get your visa."

And my father said, "No, no, no. I won't do it. He's my friend." 

Sasha Ingber: Now, from speaking with Sergei, you also learned that you yourself could have gotten very much caught up in the crosshairs between the CIA and KGB as well through a letter. And this also relates to Vasya, your friend. Can you tell us about that letter?

Alex Goldfarb: So in parallel to all of the Nick Danilov developments, there was another kind of line which I learned about from Sergei. That my old friend, Vassa, who ended up, uh, being a KGB informer, one day sent me, uh, a letter through Nick Daniloff asking to send him a particular biological reagent which he needed for his work, and whether, uh, this reagent, which was not available, uh, in the Soviet Union, could be, uh, somehow obtained in the United States and sent to him, again, via Nick Daniloff's mail.

And I contacted the, uh, manufacturer, and the manufacturer told me that, "No, no, no, you cannot send it to Russia because it's a dual-use material, and it's prohibited for export to the Soviet bloc." And the next day I had two CIA people on my door at, uh, at Columbia University. And they said, "We hear that you tried to obtain something prohibited and send it to the Soviet Union."

Obviously, the manufacturer contacted them. I said, "Yes." And they kind of interviewed me and asked me what it was all about and who sent the request, that I communicate with that person, bypassing the normal customs, and so on and so forth. And I told them the whole story about Vasya and about our channel of communications courtesy of Nick Daniloff, and that I didn't send it because I was told it's prohibited.

And they wanted the name of my correspondent who asked for that, uh, reagent. And I said, "No, I can't give it to you because if I give it to you, you will go in Moscow, try to recruit him, and, uh, then he'll be caught and executed, and I b- will be, um, responsible. So no, I'm not giving you the name." And they left.

And then 20 years later, I learn that Vasya was actually a, a KGB informer. And it was kind of a belated chills down my spine because had I agreed to the CIA request, they would go on and try to recruit him. And then all of us, uh, myself, my father, Nick Daniloff, would be accused, uh, by the Soviets of, uh, spying for the CIA.

And that's what Sergei actually told me 20 years later in Dusseldorf, that we had listening devices, uh, that confirmed all this conversations and, um, plans. And actually, he said, "I was ready to arrest your father and Nick Daniloff, and put them all, um, on trial for espionage." 

Sasha Ingber: So what was he told, uh, as to the reason why your father shouldn't be arrested when he thought that the case was sealed?

Alex Goldfarb: Yes, so he sought approval, uh, from the higher is up. And it turned out that, uh, Central Counterintelligence, uh, Division, uh, of the KGB banned my father's arrest, uh, and said that, "No, no, don't arrest him. Keep watching." And the reason was that if they really were the go-betweens between the CIA and some anonymous sources within the biological weapons program, they wanted those sources.

Sasha Ingber: What did it feel like to be sitting there all of these years later in Dusseldorf looking face to face this man who completely changed the trajectory of your father's life, your life, without any of you having known it? 

Alex Goldfarb: Well, on the one hand, I felt very excited because they helped to put pieces together.

There were many events of that period which we didn't understand, even after my father's death. But on the other hand, I also, uh, at the time caught myself thinking that this is just like The Count of the Monte Cristo, when many, many years later you return to the scene and find out the names of people who were actually responsible for your, um, your problems, your troubles, uh, back then.

Sasha Ingber: There must have been many complicated emotions running through you as you were learning that people who you didn't know were investigating your father, people who you knew were informing on your father. Why do you think that Sergei decided to contact you and share this with you? 

Alex Goldfarb: Well, Sergei was a defector.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1981, he decided not to return, uh, to Moscow, but to go over, uh, to West Berlin, and to defect to the CIA. When I met Sergei, he was not in a very good shape. He was depressed a- and sad, and he felt that he may have made a, a wrong step when he decided to defect because he said that he was milked, uh, by the Americans.

They helped him to settle, and then they essentially dropped him, and his life was okay, but it was not very exciting. 

Sasha Ingber: Did he still believe that your father was spying for the CIA? 

Alex Goldfarb: Yes, he still believed that my father was spying for the CIA, and Nick Daniloff was spying for the CIA. So we, we parted, each of us believing, uh, his own thing.

I believe that my father and Nick Daniloff never had to do with the CIA, although they were entangled unwittingly in CIA operations. Uh, whereas, uh, Sergei believed that they were genuine CIA, and that was his most important case of his career 

Sasha Ingber: If Sergei is contacting you because he wants to relive his glory days, uh, what ended up happening to him? Uh, where is he now? 

Alex Goldfarb: I don't know. I kept in contact with him until 2019, and, uh, he was trying to return back to Russia Uh, he, uh, it so happened that he knew personally Vladimir Putin. He, uh, when he was stationed in Germany, Sergei, he was essentially actually friends with, uh, Mr. Putin. So when Putin became president, he wrote to him s- asking for permission to come back to Russia, and, uh, he got a response that there's no reason to reconsider your, uh, conviction, uh, of high treason. And, uh, that was another element of his depression, I would say. So when he disappeared from my, from my radar screen in 2019, I don't know what happened.

He actually is also must be about 80 now. So, uh, he might have died of COVID. He might have, uh, returned to Russia because Putin, uh, has changed his mind and allowed his old friend to return from the cold, uh, or whatever. Anyway, uh, Sergei, uh, disappeared. 

Sasha Ingber: Right. And of course, it's in 1986 when Danilov is swapped for a Soviet physicist who is working in New York at the United Nations.

He's a spy who the FBI catch in a sting operation when he buys classified documents regarding American war planes. And because Reagan does not want that arrest to be seen as equivalent to an American journalist being arrested on espionage charges, which are fabricated in Moscow, he insists that more people be added to the swap, which means that your father now has a chance to leave the Soviet Union, and he is finally out of the Soviet Union with his wife.

I, I read that you were there holding pink roses. Danilov was with you at the airport. What was it like to finally hug your father after all of that time? And when you think about it now with how much more you know, what is it like to revisit that moment in, in your memory? 

Alex Goldfarb: Well, uh, looking back, I must say that apart for the obvious emotion o- you know, of a reunion with your parents after almost 10 years of separation, and, uh, fears that you may never, uh, never, uh, see them again, that was, uh, uh, emotionally very, very high moment for me.

But on the top of that, I must say that this whole saga of, uh, our family leaving and moving to the United States was also, uh, part of a high drama, and that feeling that you were involved in historical events and, uh, had your, you know, five minutes of fame being on the front page of the New York Times, which happened when my father arrived, also added another dimension, uh, to my memories, uh, when as an old man I'm now trying to rethink, uh, and relive, uh, my life.

Sasha Ingber: When you think about what Sergei told you and the amount of time that you lost with your father, this was a time before we had video calls, text messaging, um, what does it mean to 

Alex Goldfarb: you? I was separated, uh, from my family, and, uh, believed that I would never see them again When I was able to go back to those times and relive all those events, both on the good side and the bad side, now I see, uh, my life in a much better way.

Uh, usually those things that happen to you and your family 20, 30, 40 years ago, they fade i- into memory, but now it's very, very vivid in front of me. 

Sasha Ingber: I know you did everything you could to try to get your father out of the Soviet Union, and if you'd had more information, I wonder if that would have changed it.

I guess as a last point here, before Danilov died in 2024, he reportedly said, quote, "When I left Moscow in 1986 after a five-year assignment, I warned not to expect democracy to take hold in Russia for two generations or 40 years. I guess I was too optimistic." Of course, under Putin, we have seen Americans, including journalists, still be taken as pawns for future negotiations.

Alex Goldfarb: you know, you have to put this story in the context, uh, of everything that happened since. The greatest sin of Mr. Putin and his regime is not, of course, uh, harassing journalists, but starting a horrific war. So, uh, everything that Mr. Putin does, actually, is very much, uh, reminiscent of what happened, uh, in the Soviet regime, and we don't know where it will end, uh, whether Russia would return to those brief period, uh, of relative democracy, uh, which enabled me to meet my informant, Sergei, or whether it will be back into the Soviet times.

But maybe younger people who are trying to deal with the, Russia now may find these stories very useful. 

Sasha Ingber: Uh, very complex story that you're weaving here, and I really appreciate you taking the time, Alex. Thank you. 

Alex Goldfarb: You're welcome. 

Sasha Ingber: Thanks for listening to this episode of SpyCast. If you like the episode, give us a follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a rating or review.

It really helps. If you have any feedback or you wanna hear about a particular topic, you can reach us by email at spycast@spymuseum.org. I'm your host, Sasha Ingber, and this show is brought to you by N2K Networks, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC.