Widow Spy TRIANON/TRIGON Timelines

See timeline chart for the TRIANON operation:

This research, done by Tolga Urcel, is based mostly on Marti’s book Widow Spy and Igor Peretrukhin’s Agent Codename – TRIANON

Click for Moscow map of possible Parkplatz location

Tolga Yucel

28th April 2018

Dear Martha,

I wanted to write you this letter earlier (in December 2017) but I just had some time now to write it. Firstly I am deeply touched by the events in your book. I was very sorry for your husband and I was also very sad that Ogorodnik was caught and had to end his life. You may ask how I did end up reading your book? I was reading Pete Early’s book called “Confessions of a Spy “ about Aldrich Ames in which your name with the events that took place in Moscow are mentioned in detail.

The reason I am writing to you is to clear some points to which I could not find any answers to. Maybe you can help me out. Actually you are the only person who can help me out.

I would like to mention the signal site “PARKPLATZ” whose description was given by Ed at page 166 in your book. But before reading the “The Widow Spy” I read the book of KGB Colonel Igor Peretrukhin (Игорь ПЕРЕТРУХИН), who took part throughout the TRIANON case and discovered that the KGB didn’t have any idea where the signal site “PARKPLATZ” was in order to trigger a dead drop meeting. But they already knew that you would be making a drop at “LES” on 28th June 1977 at Victory Park. But according to you, for the meeting on 28th June 1977 there was no need for a signal because the meeting was set in advance without the need of a signal and the KGB still parked the 2 authentic black Volgas with the same number plates at two different places to signal the timed exchange at LES on 28th June 1977. And one of them was parked at COLLONADE instead of WALK which was a big mistake by the KGB’s. And this was mentioned in the CIA’s message to Ogorodnik stating that the “LES” was still regarded as a safe place. By that time the KGB already arrested Ogorodnik on 22nd June 1977 at his apartment at Kransnopenskaya Nablyudeniya (sic naberezhnaya). One of my questions is, didn’t the Moscow Station get suspicious after seeing Ogordnik’s car signaling at the Collonade? Did you assume that he was trying to make the exchange at a place associated with the “Collonade” and is this the reason why the CIA said in their message to Ogorodnik that “LES was still regarded as a safe place to make the exchange”? If it is not still classified could you disclose the location of COLLONADE and WALK with their associated exchange sites. Below is the photo of Ogorodnik’s Volga with identical twin including the things in the rear window.

According to Igor Peretruhin 28th June 1977 the van parked on “Staromozhanskoye Shosse” and the man with a flashlight in the Victory Park were not connected with the KGB. That evening the KGB deployed and dispersed 120 man strong surveilance team in an area spanning about 1.200 meters throughout the Victory Park. They could not locate the drop site which originally was a car toss maybe 2 meters from the “Prospekt Marshal Grechko” according to your account. But they claim to have seen you exit the Victory Park to the south-east near the railway station. Meanwhile they intercepted the radio message from Frankfurt and deciphered it through Ogorodnik’s onetime pad they found in his flat at Krasnopenskaya Nablyudeniya. So to trigger a meeting they marked “DETI” on 14th July 1977 because they didn’t know where “PARKPLATZ” was and whose description was never given in any document or message.

Firstly, I assume that, Ogorodnik might have chosen PARKPLATZ as a signal place that would not raise any suspicion, my question is; was PARKPLATZ a place that he regularly would visit after work without raising the suspicion of anyone and was it a place where his friend, girlfriend or a relative lived? Because he described PARKPLATZ in Bogota it might have been a place he regularly visited even before he was posted to Bogota. To my big surprize the KGB could not establish Ogorodnik’s general pattern of movement in Moscow and they could not figure out PARKPLATS’s location which he used so many times. It really must have been such a good location which was above suspicion. I found some information in the book called “The Billion Dollar Spy” by David Hoffman that PARKPLATS was the location of his mother’s flat which I think was located about 500 meters from the Borodinsky Most (into the direction of Setun River) at “Berezhkovskaya Nablyudenia no:4”. If it is not still classified could you tell me where PARKPLATZ was and who lived there or if I am correct with “Berezhkovskaya Nablyudenia no:4”. (I arrived at this conclusion by finding an old Moscow map online and using Google Maps to plot your possible driving route form the embassy to your flat with the help of Ed’s description. I have attached a pdf file showing the possible location of Parkplatz).

Secondly, according to Igor Peretruhin’s account in his book “TRIANON”, the KGB grew suspicious on 10th June 1976, Thursday “11 days” before the timed exchange that happened on 21st June 1976, Sunday at LES where he received the log with the L-PILL from you. According to KGB’s surveillance report; Ogorodnik left his house 10th June 1976, Thursday evening at 21:20 with an umbrella (dizzling rain) walked to the bus stop at Konyushkovskaya Ulitsa and took the bus number 2 and got off the bus at Dunayevsky Street, he waited a couple of minutes switching to the next bus stop and got on to the bus number 45 and rode until the bus stop called “9th kilometer (9-й километр)” and got off. He then crossed the Kutuzovsky Prospekt and through the forest went to the Staromozhankoye Shosse and continued walking through the winding path until he reached the “Victory Monument of the Soviet People”. Ogorodnik sat at a bench near the “Victory Monument” stood up and went to the main alley leading to the park and returned to the “Victory Monument” again and sat at another bench across the previous bench for a couple of minutes again. He again stood up and walked through the thickets and shrubs to the “Staromozhankoye Shosse” reaching the crossroads of “Minskaya Ulitsa” from there he walked 810 meters on “Staromozhankoye Shosse” and came back through the same route to the cross roads with the “Minskaya Ulitsa”. At 20:20 hours from there Ogorodnik walked through the forest to the railway station into the south-easternly direction. At this point KGB discontinued their surveillance because they did not want to risk the detection of their surveillance teams. So they moved some of the surveillance to the Krasnopenskaya Nablyudeniya where Ogorodnik lived. They recorded Ogorodnik’s return to his flat at 23:45 hours the same night.

After this event the KGB made a collective meeting with the heads of the 7th Directorate (Surveillance), 2nd Chief Directorate’s 1st Directorate (Counter Intel US) and 7th Directorate (Counter Intel MFA, MGIMO & Foreign press). At the meeting besides Ogorodnik surveillance reports 1st Directorate (Counter Intel US) deputy chief Rem KRASILNIKOV announced that “Jack DOWNING” was making similar walks (as far as I understand at different times) which was not clear to them until they detected & established Ogorodnik’s “walk” on 10th June 1976 which indicated a correlation. Upon this finding the head of the 2nd Chief Directorate Grigory GRIGORENKO was notified and he gave the order to immediately stop surveillance and surveillance to be only made in exceptional cases and to exercise extreme caution. To minimize the risk of detection the KGB then began to look for an observation post opposite Ogorodnik’s apartment in the Krasnopenskaya Nablyudeniya.

The KGB especially after Ogorodnik’s evening excursion on 10th June 1976 began to look at his connections which took them almost six months until the beginning of 1977 and they didn’t find anything.

But according to KGB’s surveillance reports Jack DOWNING would come to the Victory Park with his car and would walk at a slow pace about the same route Ogorodnik walked that evening and would come to the Victory Monument from a different route while doing so he would closely examine the surroundings. I don’t think that Jack would be so careless to come to the Victory Park without any purpose. He would know that he is being surveilled by the KGB but according to my theory he would do so intentionally to draw the KGB surveillance so that every time he left the embassy or his house he would ensure that some surveillance teams constantly watched him and he would do so maybe at the same night of a planned exchange to draw KGB’s attention away from you (although you wouldn’t be surveilled), or one of your colleagues.

In July 1976 Igor Peretrukhin invited Ogorodnik to the KGB office located in the MFA building to foster their relationship. Ogordnik asked to use the office phone to call someone. He called a woman named Anna who was divorced and was also a personnel of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Igor Peretruhin recalls Ogorodnik’s phone conversation very vividly. Ogorodnik told Anna “Anna I need you very much. I will be with you in 20 minutes.” I think Ogorodnik was trying to misguide the KGB by meeting various people with different backgrounds because he knew that he was under close watch. And by using the KGB office phone he was trying to convey a message to the KGB that he doesn’t have anything to hide and that he was even comfortable to use the KGB’s phone for this purpose. In Igor Peretrukhin’s book there was no mention of a surveillance report until April 1977. During this time the KGB mostly focused on Ogorodnik’s connections. There was even no mention regarding the meeting of the face to face meeting with Jack Downing and Ogorodnik which took place in August 1976. There were four sucessful exchanges between August 1976-December 1976. Could you tell me if still not classified in which park did Jack and Ogorodnik meet in August 1976?

But from January 1977 until April 1977 although Ogorodnik signaled at PARKPLATZ there were no exchanges. Until a meeting schedule was delivered to his car through his fly window at PARKPLATZ on 15th April 1977, Friday and exchange took place on 19th April 1977, Tuesday at LES. According to KGB surveillance report on 19th April 1977, Tuesday Ogorodnik came to his house at Krasnopenskaya Nablyudeniya at 18:50, left his house with his leather briefcase at 21:40. At 23.30 the objects car with the Moscow number plate MKSCH 42-92 was seen at the turn with Minsk on Staromozhayskoe Shosse. He drove to the entrance of the Victory Park. He stopped in the middle of the roadway and he sat 30-40 seconds behind the wheel. Then he drove onto Kutuzovsky Prospekt.”

According to Igor Peretrukhin’s book, Rem Krasilnikov with some confidence assumed that the walks between Jack Duncan who already left Moscow by that time and the behavior of Ogorodnik could have had some connection. Do you think this is a correct assumption?

The other thing I would like to ask is that you didn’t mention the “Sauna Event” which took place in May 1977 at the Chaika Swimming Pool complex. The KGB searched Ogorodnik’s belongings in his locker, they also searched his car and made copies of his flat keys. I know this from Igor Peretruhin’s book because he disclosed a message from the CIA to Ogorodnik. In this message CIA wanted to know more about the “Sauna Event”.

Another question Trigon signaled at PARKPLATZ on the scheduled Friday evening before the Saturday delivery date in a forest. Was the forest you skied “Bitzhevsky Park” which was 10 km from yours flat. The exchange site called VALUN (boulder). Could this be the prominent boulder in the photo below you mention in your book which is located in the park?

Before ending my letter I have a final question. You saw the signal at Deti which was a stenciled horizontal red line and you had a bad feeling about this signal but the Moscow Station still wanted you to carry out the exchange. Why did the Moscow Station let you proceed with the exchange at Krasnoluzhsky Bridge?

Below are some photos showing a member of the 7th Department (Surveillance) Viktor Peskov dressed in Ogorodnik’s clothes after his death. I guess KGB wanted to make sure that Ogorodnik was still alive and OK in the eyes of the Moscow Station. KGB may have arranged Ogorodnik’s twin show up at places where a member of the Moscow Station would observe him.

Thank you in advance for taking your time to read this letter.

I would really appreciate if you could answer my questions. I have attached a timeline of events from the “Widow Spy” and comparing the timeline with Igor Peretrukhin’s book “Trianon” which I made for myself to better understand the flow of events. I have also attached a file  which I think is a possible location for Parkplatz.

Sincerely Yours,

Tolga YUCEL

Parkplatz signaling spot