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lifted a bit more every day, and Soviet secret services urgently needed backup.
    The recruits from those years became the stars of post-war special services. Even their adversaries in the Western Bloc shared this opinion, among them Marcel Chalet, head of the French DST from 1975 through 1982. “In the post-war period,” he writes, “because of the lack of opening of the Soviet world, intelligence officers were not very sophisticated. They had a hard time adjusting to our way of life; they could not speak our language very well and were easy to spot. Later, they made significant efforts to improve the quality of their officers, aiming at making them socially acceptable, able to be introduced just about anywhere. They were more discreet, more skilled, having integrated our culture better, and were much better educated. They created a generation of high-quality intelligence officers. This turning point came at the end of the sixties. Then, we sensed some kind of slacking off, probably due to lower morale and a certain degree of ideological contamination. Little by little the influence of the West was permeating their way of thinking.” 1
    The KGB looked for honest and outgoing young people, preferably with a proletarian background. Vladimir met all these criteria. He was from a working-class family, was a good student and a team leader at his university, and he had solid technical training with a rare specialization in computers. He was a reserve officer (military training was part of the curriculum at MVTU), a good performance athlete, and already a member of Dynamo (a plus, since sports were very much in favor in the KGB as much as in Soviet society at large).
    Vladimir was very excited by this job offer even if, at first, he was to work in counterintelligence. An aura of mystery and adventure surrounded the profession of secret services officer, and it was a great honor to be part of those shadowy fighters. He did not accept the offer right away, however. He wanted to consult with Svetlana first. More and more, she was the one making the decisions for the couple. His wife was in heaven with the news. It was so romantic! She had always dreamt of being a spy or a ballet dancer.
    On July 9, 1959, engineer Vetrov from the SAM plant wrote his application to the head of the KGB directorate for the Moscow region, Major General Svetlichny M. P. “Please accept my application to attend the KGB school. I will honor the trust placed in me.” 2

Vetrov (second row, second from right) wears a uniform for the first time for reserve officer training at Bauman Institute.

    Vetrov’s labor booklet, the genuine one, shows the following note, dated August 20, 1959: “Discharged from current position due to transfer to the Committee for State Security.” The “cover” booklet made by the KGB indicates that he was an employee of the organization called Mail Box 991 for the next three years, making him a senior engineer on June 18, 1960, and terminating him on September 18, 1962, “due to his transfer to another workplace.” 3

Vetrov’s (genuine) labor booklet at the SAM plant shows the following note, dated August 20, 1959: “Discharged from current position due to transfer to the Committee for State Security.”

    And thus, in the fall of 1959, as the new university year started, Vladimir embarked on a two-year program at the Dzerzhinsky 4 School dedicated to the training of operational personnel. At the time, the institution was headquartered in Bolshoi Kiselny Alley, a fifteen-minute walk from the Vetrovs’ home. Vladimir’s classmates remember a fairly gifted but lazy young man who did not distinguish himself from the rest of the trainees.
    After a year, his promising career was threatened to be cut short before it even started. Khrushchev, who initially hoped to reform the KGB, was now thinking of killing the monster he was not sure he could control. After a wave of layoffs in the army, the first secretary of the Communist