Karl Richter felt particularly unhappy and frustrated because Rudenko was different from the others Richter dealt with in the espionage profession. Richter had known several men who were finally exposed and died in anonymity. It was the ultimate hazard of the business. But Rudenko was special. He and Karl Richter had been close friends since high school. They had met at lunch one day and discovered an instant rapport over things like the lowly state of the Philadelphia Athletics and the supreme joy of riding a horse in the sweet fragrance of an early morning mist. After the first day, they had slept at each other’s homes, shared shirts and ties, and double-dated with girls in Karl’s Studebaker convertible. Richter was particularly enchanted with the stories Grigor’s parents told of Russia in the old days, when the Czar was ruler and the winter snows hid the landscape but not the misery of the peasants, who bore the feudal life with stoic passivity.
In June of 1941, the two boys had graduated from high school and both were to go to Haverford College in the fall. But Grigor’s world changed forever on June 22nd, when Adolf Hitler invaded Russia.
His family had left Russia in 1928, not because they were totally disenchanted with communism, but to find a more immediate better life for themselves and for Grigor, then four years old. Sacha and Sonya Rudenko knew that Russia would improve under Stalin; anything would be better than life under the Romanovs. But they did not want to wait. The Civil War had ended; Lenin’s Five-Year plans were struggling along to fruition. But Grigor was the Rudenko’s only child, and they wanted a better world for him at once. Because relatives in Philadelphia had urged them to come to America, they packed their suitcases and left the steppe country around Rostov for the last time. For them it was heartbreaking; for Grigor it was an adventure.
In 1941, when the motherland was threatened and Stalin appealed to his countrymen to defend it, not communism, from the invader, the Rudenkos felt the tug of patriotism. Grigor went to fight in their place.
When the war was ended, he was nearly twenty-two and had met a nurse named Tamara, whose entire family — except for an uncle, Andrei Parchuk, the world-renowned quantum physicist — had been killed in the massacre of Kharkov. Grigor married her in Moscow in 1946, and immediately went to work for the government press agency Tass. He wrote faithfully to Karl Richter, who had just returned from the Pacific where he had served on Admiral Bull Halsey’s staff. Richter was finishing his education at Yale and planning a career in the Foreign Service. Rudenko’s letters were marvelous accounts of life in Moscow, of the new society building in Russia, of his hopes that the two friends might meet again soon. He often wrote of the days before the war and the people they had known in school. In 1948, the letters stopped coming, and, when Richter visited Rudenko’s parents to find out about Grigor, they admitted sadly that he did not write to them anymore, either.
Karl Richter joined the Foreign Service and was posted to a succession of assignments in South America, then on to Paris, and finally in 1956, to the embassy in Moscow. He had married the daughter of a prominent Main Line doctor in 1951, and she followed him around the world, hating every minute of it. They had no children, and the tedium of diplomatic life claimed her as a victim. She began to drink, at first socially, then to blot out her boredom. Richter watched her disintegrate but could do nothing to arrest her destruction. Just before they were to leave for Moscow, she went into the bathroom of their Paris apartment and swallowed thirty-five sleeping pills. She was dead when he found her.
Richter went to Moscow a broken man. He plunged into his work as cultural attaché and began the inevitable rounds of cocktails at various embassies. At the Swedish Embassy, he met Grigor Rudenko, now plump and jolly. The two friends did not embrace. Richter instinctively knew that he should not betray their long acquaintance. Grigor shook his hand warmly but otherwise held his own emotions in check. They talked briefly about their families, and Rudenko offered his condolences to Richter about his wife’s death. Richter was positive then that Grigor was involved in Soviet secret police activities, for only the KGB would have a full dossier on him. At the end of the party, Grigor shook hands again with Karl, who felt a piece of paper stick to his palm. He casually put it in his pocket and went out to his car where he unfolded the tiny scrap and read, “Karl, meet me at Dynamo Stadium, soccer game, 2 P.M., Saturday, Gate C.”
Richter checked with his superiors, who told him to proceed with the meeting. At 1:55, Richter met Grigor, who walked in front of him to the ticket-taker and handed over two tickets. Then the two men went into the stadium and sat down to watch the game. Grigor ignored him for a few moments. The crowd was in an uproar, cheering on the Dynamos against a team from Kiev.
“Great sport, Karl, isn’t it?”
“Almost as good as watching the Athletics.”
Grigor laughed deeply and put his hand on Karl’s wrist. “We have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?”
He began to talk. He had stopped writing because of his new job with the KGB. Grigor wanted to know about his family, and Karl assured him they were fine, if a bit hurt that he did not correspond. Rudenko grimaced at this news, but did not comment.
“Karl, I made a bad mistake, staying here in Russia. I was so enchanted with the victory over Germany and the hopes for this country in the postwar world that I threw everything over for it. Now I’m in it up to my neck. I can never go back.” Richter watched the game while his friend went on. “But I’ve been thinking there may be a way I can still be an American, in spirit at least.” Rudenko leaned over and whispered, “Karl, I’m going to pass information to you. Only you. You have to be my contact at all times.”
Richter nodded impassively and Rudenko sat back, seemingly purged of his burden.
At half time, the two men got up and wandered down the ramp under the stands. They separated there with smiles, and Rudenko walked to Gate D and through it. Richter went out through Gate C.
In the next two years, Grigor Rudenko kept his word. He and Karl met in restaurants, at receptions, and on long walks at night through side streets, where they fleshed in the missing years of their lives and talked about the cold war. Each time they met, Rudenko handed over microfilm, papers, and copies of orders, whose contents provided American intelligence with a staggering insight into Soviet plans. Richter was afraid for Rudenko and told him not to risk his life. Rudenko always laughed and said he was too highly placed to be followed, too important to be suspected. The meetings continued.
Rudenko never brought Richter to see his wife and two children. Once he did show him snapshots of his family, and Richter made appropriate comments on their appearances. Rudenko was pleased but did not speak about them further.
In September, 1959, Karl Richter had to leave Moscow. His tour of duty was up, and, if he had requested an extension, the Russians would have been suspicious. That would have endangered Grigor. The old friends met for the last time at the British Embassy, where Richter introduced Rudenko to Anthony Carter, who would be Rudenko’s new contact. Carter would funnel all information to Richter in London. Rudenko seemed satisfied with the arrangement.