In examining mutual relations between the GRU and the KGB we have to return to the question of the GRU's dependence on the KGB. In the chapter on history we endeavoured to show the character of these mutual relations in the past. The same mutual relations have been preserved up to the present day. The GRU and the KGB are ready at any moment to destroy each other. Between them exist exactly those mutual relations which perfectly suit the Party. The jealousy and mutual hatred between the GRU and KGB are familiar to the police of every country where the Soviet Union has an embassy, and it is precisely this enmity, noticeable even to 'unarmed eyes', which provides proof of the independence of the GRU.
If the fate or career of a GRU resident were to depend even slightly on his colleague from the KGB, he would never in his life dare to differ with, still less quarrel or brawl with, the Tchekists: he would be like a cowed lap-dog with his tail between his legs, not even daring to bark for the lady of the house, like the 'clean' diplomats in all Soviet embassies. But officers of the GRU do not do this. They have guarantees of their independence and invulnerability from the KGB. Some specialists are inclined to consider the GRU as a branch of the KGB, usually adducing in defence of this opinion two arguments. Firstly, they say that the chief of the GRU is always a former KGB general, but this has always been the case, beginning with Aralov, and has never prevented the GRU from actively opposing the efforts of the KGB to swallow it, and even sometimes on the order of the Party striking the Tchekists sudden and heavy blows. The second argument is that everybody joining the GRU has to be vetted by the KGB. This argument appears convincing only at a first glance. The fact is that ea jh new official of the Central Committee of the Party also undergoes the same vetting by the KGB, but it certainly does not follow this that the Central Committee is under the control of the KGB or is a branch of the KGB. Both the Central Committee and the GRU select for themselves the people necessary to them, and in this connection consult the KGB, for any person until he becomes a Central Committee official or joins the GRU is under the control of the KGB and possibly the KGB may have some unfavourable information on a given person. The KGB in this case plays the part of a filter. But once having passed this person through its filter the KGB no longer has the right to interfere with him, either inside the Central Committee or inside the GRU. The KGB is like a guard at the gate of a secret installation. The guard may refuse entry to an engineer who has forgotten his pass at home, but he has no right to examine the contents of that engineer's safe. If it so desires, the KGB may, of course, discredit any unwanted official of the GRU or the Central Committee. However, this is fraught with potential reciprocal measures.
There exists still another irrefutable indicator of the independence of the GRU from the KGB. In the GRU there is no 'special department'. The security of the GRU is assured by its own forces, and always has been. The Party is very keen that this should continue, because it knows that if the KGB were to organise its own 'special department' in the GRU, a similar department would swiftly be introduced into the Politburo.
To illustrate the uneasy peace and the paradox of the independence that exists within the triangle of Party - KGB - GRU, let us consider a real confrontation. The working day of the GRU chief usually begins at seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier. At that time he personally reads all telegrams which have come during the night from illegals, from undercover residencies, and from the intelligence directorates of military districts, groups of forces and of the fleet intelligence. In the next-door office, the first deputy to the GRU chief and the chief of information of the GRU are doing the same thing. If any questions have been raised by any of the higher commanders, from the chief of the general staff upwards, their opinions will be heard separately, independent from the opinions of the GRU chief.
This day began for the GRU leadership at the unusually early hour of 3.30 in the morning, when it was informed by the command point that the aircraft from Paris had landed at the central airport and taxied up to the GRU building. The day before, at Le Bourget airport, the Soviet supersonic passenger aircraft Tupolev TU144 had crashed. The whole of the Paris residency had been at the show and the majority had had cine cameras. The moment of catastrophe had been photographed from different points by different officers, and the GRU had at its disposal no fewer then twenty films showing the same moment. The films had not been developed in Paris but brought straight to Moscow. Now the operational technological institute of the GRU would develop them immediately. At nine o'clock in the morning the Politburo session was to begin, at which they would hear evidence from Tupolev, his deputies, the minister of aviation production, the director of the Voronesh aviation factory, directors of subsidiary concerns, test pilots and of course the GRU and the KGB. But at seven, the telephone rang and it was Andropov, at the time head of the KGB. 'Peter Ivanovitch, how are you?'
Peter Ivanovitch Ivashutin (present chief of the GRU) did not hasten to match the friendly tone. 'Well. How are you, comrade Andropov?'
'Peter Ivanovitch, don't be so official. Have you forgotten my name? Peter Ivanovitch, there is something I want to talk to you about. I hear you have got some films showing the catastrophe.' Peter Ivanovitch said nothing. 'Peter Ivanovitch, would you be very kind and give me just one little film? You know yourself that I have to make a report to the Politburo but I have no material. These shows are not of great interest to my chaps and unfortunately not one of them was there with a cine camera. Help me to get out of this mess. I need that film about the catastrophe.'
All service telephone calls to the GRU chief are relayed through the GRU command point. The duty shift of operators is always in readiness to prompt their chief with a necessary figure or fact, or to help him over a mistake in conversation. At this point the entire duty shift was frozen to the spot. Their help was not called for at all. The GRU chief remained silent for some time. The duty operators were quite certain that in a similar situation, the KGB would undoubtedly refuse if the GRU asked for its help. But what would be the decision of the GRU chief, an ex-colonel-general of the KGB and ex-deputy chairman of the KGB? Finally, in friendly, even tones he answered Andropov.
'Yuri Vladimirovich, I won't give you one film, I'll give you all twenty. Only I will show them at nine o'clock in the Politburo, and at ten o'clock I'll send my chaps over to the Central Committee to give you all the films.'
Andropov angrily slammed down the receiver. A concerted roar of laughter shook the walls of the underground command point. The senior operator, choking with laughter, entered the conversation in the log book.
(After Andropov became General Secretary of the Communist Party and Soviet Leader, Ivashutin still survived as GRU chief, because any attack from Andropov could easily have upset the fragile Party-Army balance with unpredictable consequences for Andropov himself.)
Chapter Eight
The Centre
Unlike the KGB, the GRU does not try to advertise itself, and its head office does not rise in the centre of the capital on its most crowded square. The head office of the GRU, although it is in Moscow, is by no means easy to find. It is enclosed from three sides by the central airport, the old Khodinka field. The aerodrome is surrounded on all sides by restricted buildings, among which are the offices of three leading aviation firms and one rocket construction firm, and the military aviation academy and the aviation institute. In the centre of these secret institutes the aerodrome carries on with its life as if half-asleep. Very, very rarely, in the middle of the night, a covered-up fuselage of a fighter aircraft is taken out of a hangar, loaded onto a transport aeroplane and transported somewhere into the trans-Volga steppe for testing. Sometimes another transport aircraft lands, goes up to the GRU building and unloads a foreign tank or rocket, after which everything becomes peaceful again. For two months of the year preparations are carried out for the grandiose military parades, and the roar of tank engines can be heard on the airfield. The parades finish, but the guarded area remains guarded, an empty field in the centre of Moscow patrolled by watchdogs. Not one civil aircraft or helicopter disturbs the quiet of Khodinka, only the watchdogs howl at night like wolves. How many of them are there? One loses count. No, from three sides it is impossible to get to the GRU. From the fourth side, too. On the fourth side there is the Institute of Cosmic Biology, with more dogs and electric barbed wire. A narrow little lane leads through a blind wall ten metres high, behind which is the 'Aquarium'. In order to penetrate into the inner fortress of the GRU one must negotiate either the area of the secret aerodrome or the area of the top secret institute.