Operation TRIGON: How a rookie spy helped change the world of espionage

MARTHA “MARTI” PETERSON

• YEAR OF BIRTH: 1945
• PLACE OF BIRTH: KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
• ENTRANCE ON DUTY: 1973
• FIELD TRADECRAFT CERTIFICATION: YES
• HOME BASE: RUSSIA HOUSE
• FOREIGN LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN

“You know, Marti,” the COS [chief of station] began. “This is the only place you can know us.” It was July 1975, and the recently widowed, newly trained spy had just arrived in Moscow for her first field tour — four months after the other [male] case officers due to some administrative delays. Marti was both thrilled and relieved to see familiar faces after an Embassy officer escorted her to the covert CIA Station.

Marti was in a newly created position, which meant she had a clean slate — a perfect scenario when traveling to a denied area as a CIA officer because the KGB would have no reason to suspect her. This meant it was essential to her cover that Marti not associate with anyone from Station unless there was a visible way to connect her to them. Her cover, above all else, was important.

She began meeting people at the Marine house and living the perceived life of a single woman in Moscow. She hiked with girlfriends and even learned to cross-country ski, mail-ordering a set of skis from a store in Helsinki. When she was out, she wore her SRR-100, a receiver strapped to her bra with a new type of Velcro that enabled her to listen to the KGB’s unencrypted radio transmissions to determine whether they were following her throughout Moscow.

Hours, days, and weeks went by, and Marti still hadn’t detected surveillance. She was confident that she had traveled to enough places, including remote areas, in an effort to draw out surveillance, to confirm she wasn’t being followed. It seemed to her that the KGB didn’t find a group of women on various excursions worth their time. Their chauvinism worked in Marti’s (and Station’s) favor. Still, Station wasn’t convinced. Surely, she just wasn’t seeing them, right? They decided to test Marti’s skills by positioning another officer, Mike, and his wife at a currency store along her route that gave him full view of her tangerine Zhiguli as she drove by. Just as Marti anticipated, Mike didn’t spot surveillance nor did he hear broadcasts over the KGB’s radio frequency that would indicate she was being followed. He reported back to Station that Marti was indeed surveillance-free or “black.”

The office was satisfied, at least for now, but doubts in Marti’s ability to detect surveillance remained. In some respects, this was understandable, given that they were operating in a denied area — you can never be too careful. However, one can’t help but wonder if some of those doubts were linked to her being a first tour officer, and more importantly, a woman. At any rate, Marti said such doubts prompted her to remain vigilant, which is never a bad idea, particularly in such a high-risk country.

Once it was determined that Marti could identify surveillance, the chief selected her to serve as a backup in the event the deputy chief, Jack, could not pick up a package from Station’s most prized asset, a man named Aleksandr Ogorodnik, code-named TRIGON. TRIGON was recruited in January 1973 while serving a tour in the Soviet embassy in Bogotá. He was a prolific reporter who quickly proved his worth to Station, offering unique insight into Soviet relations in Latin America. TRIGON considered defecting and staying abroad, but after some coaxing from his case officer, the lure of more financial gain, and the idea of changing the system from within, he opted to return to Moscow in hopes of gaining a position in the government that would give him even greater access to information of interest to the United States.

It took several months for TRIGON to make contact after he arrived in Moscow in late fall 1974. Station had given him instructions to wait three months before signaling, as it was standard for the KGB to put returning diplomats through intense investigations to ensure they hadn’t been recruited by a foreign intelligence service while serving abroad. When February came, TRIGON did not signal. In fact, it was several months before he parked his vehicle at a signal site code-named PARKPLATZ as agreed to in the communication plan before he left Bogotá. It was only a month into Marti’s time in Moscow when she was pulled into the case.

Jack successfully picked up the first package from TRIGON while on his regular jogging route. Hidden in a flattened milk carton was a secret message from the asset, which noted he had secured a position in the Global Affairs Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, providing incredible access to classified cables coming in and out of Soviet embassies around the world.

In his next package, TRIGON provided photographs of nearly one hundred secret Soviet government documents, disguised in a dirty rag soaked in diesel oil. In this message, he reminded Station of the promise his case officer had made to him back in Bogotá when he agreed to return to Moscow — that headquarters would consider providing him with an L-pill, or poison. Knowing the risk he was putting himself in by committing treason within the borders of the Soviet Union, TRIGON wanted to be prepared to take his own life if he were arrested by the KGB. Although it sounds like something straight out of a spy novel, this is not standard procedure for the CIA, and the handling officer, along with headquarters, was wary of giving an asset a suicide pill. In fact, both Bogotá Station and headquarters were unanimous in their disapproval. They considered it immoral and unethical. At the same time, they had come to know and respect TRIGON and found it difficult not to consider giving him control over his future. And so, after some more thought, the handling officer agreed to present TRIGON’s case to headquarters.

Several months passed before the next package drop for TRIGON, during which time Marti continued to live her cover as single “Party Marti.” She also had a budding romance with the embassy communicator, a man named Steve whose wife had gone home to the States. Marti wasn’t interested at first — a married man wasn’t an area where she was interested in venturing. Besides, she had met his wife before she returned to the States and really liked her. She found her helpful and kind. But as Marti and Steve got to know each other, laughing over beers at the Marine house, they grew closer. And their relationship became one of the many secrets Marti kept while serving in Moscow, although this one wouldn’t prove to be as dangerous as others.

After some practice runs at headquarters, Station became concerned that a car toss could damage the miniature camera inside the next package for TRIGON, which meant an officer would have to make the delivery on foot. Since Marti still didn’t have surveillance on her, she was the most logical person for this dead drop. More time passed, and it wasn’t until April that Marti made her inaugural drop for TRIGON. She left her apartment feeling nervous yet confident about the delivery, knowing she had spent months learning the city inside and out. She made her way through Soviet neighborhoods and remote industrial areas. She became more provocative in her route, taking multiple trains to flush out surveillance. But no one was following her. When she arrived at the drop site, she leaned on the snowbank, pretended to adjust her boot, and gently placed the crumpled cigarette package on the snowy ground. She returned an hour and a half later only to find TRIGON had not retrieved the package. Disappointed, she recovered it and traveled back to the embassy Marine bar, where another CIA officer confirmed her safe return.

Station brainstormed possible explanations for why TRIGON was a no-show, but it was difficult for them to know for sure. With no future delivery dates scheduled, they went back to the original plan of looking for TRIGON’s car parked at the signal site, PARKPLATZ. And when they finally saw it a month later, Marti was again selected to deliver the package — this time straight through his car window as the deputy chief had done months prior. Although Marti’s first delivery to TRIGON hadn’t gone as planned, this one went off without a hitch.

With contact reestablished and future delivery dates secured, Station was ready to deliver on its promise. Both headquarters and Station were now in agreement that it was their “moral obligation” to provide TRIGON with the L-pill, and with the proper approvals in place, it was time for Station to decide who would deliver the poison, disguised in a fountain pen, similar to the one with the miniature camera they had already given him. A sure sign of Station’s confidence in her, Marti was chosen to deliver the most important package to TRIGON. She tucked the package, disguised as a small log, into her waistband, holding it close to her body while twisting and turning through Moscow on a well-lit summer evening. She was relieved to see that the drop site offered some shadows for cover as she placed it near the lamppost. When she returned later, it was gone, and in its place, a crushed milk carton with intelligence from TRIGON.

The KGB continued to ignore Marti, and so she continued to conduct deliveries to TRIGON surveillance-free, as did a handful of other experienced officers. What followed were regular timed exchanges often at the same drop site during the same clandestine outing, including the delivery of another L-pill after TRIGON destroyed the first one out of caution when his office was under suspicion. Station opted to reuse sites, even though they were advised against doing this in training, because they thought it was better than risking TRIGON not finding a package in a new location.

After some time, Station began to notice anomalies in TRIGON’s reporting. The quality of his photographs was deteriorating as was his health. They started to consider that he may be under KGB control. When it came time for the next drop, Marti was uneasy and even suggested another officer conduct the drop since her tour would end in just a few months. She knew that didn’t make sense though — she was the only officer who had delivered to that particular site, and if she were arrested, it wouldn’t be a significant blow to Station’s numbers, as her replacement would be arriving soon enough. Despite the anomalies in TRIGON’s reporting and the suspicions over whether it was in fact him who drew the red signal on the agreed upon location, the new chief of station, Gene, wasn’t about to admit his doubts to headquarters. The op would move forward, but this time, Marti wouldn’t be alone when she arrived at the location.

She made her way up the stairs of the bridge to the pedestrian walkway and placed the package, but before she made it all the way back down, three men approached her rapidly and grabbed her. They ripped open her blouse, revealing the SRR-100. Kicking and screaming, she explained she was American and gave the number for the U.S. Embassy as a van pulled up and flung open the doors, revealing ten to twenty more men.

Marti had been caught.

She was transported to Lubyanka prison, where she was interrogated until the KGB finally called the consular chief, Cliff, from the U.S. Embassy, who arrived and corroborated her story. It became clear to Marti that she was ambushed, and TRIGON had been apprehended. After several hours of questioning and even an attempt at coercing her into confessing to espionage, the KGB released Marti. She returned to Station, where her colleagues and new chief were awaiting her, along with a message Gene had written on the board: “Welcome back, our little girl!”

It seemed that regardless of the many difficult nights Marti had traversed the cold, lonely streets of Moscow and the seamless dead drops and timed exchanges she had successfully accomplished, it wasn’t enough to gain the respect of her new chief, who insisted that Marti had inadvertently brought surveillance to the drop site.

That accusation would haunt Marti for seven years after she was expelled from Moscow until the Agency would confirm that TRIGON had been compromised by double agents, Karl and Hana Koecher, working for the Czech intelligence service and the CIA. As part of Karl Koecher’s CIA contract in Virginia, he translated telephone taps recorded in Bogotá when TRIGON was serving there. When the couple was arrested in 1984 for providing intelligence to the Czech service and the KGB, the Agency finally learned the full details of TRIGON’s arrest, in which he sealed his own fate with the L-pill Marti had delivered.

She could finally rest easy knowing that it was nothing she did, or didn’t do, that led to the arrest of Station’s most important Moscow asset, who had become both a friend to the Agency and a hero.