Historical overview of Russian false‑flag recruitment tactics and the 1921 “Trust” operation

174 When it comes to recruiting moles in a larger universe, intelligence services operate much like highly-specialized corporate “headhunters,” as James Jesus Angleton described the process to me during the Cold War era. He was referring to the similar approach that corporate human resource divisions had with espionage agencies. Both “head hunt” by searching through a database of possible candidates for possible recruits to fill specific positions. Both type organizations have at their disposal researchers to draw up rosters of potential recruits. Both sort through available data bases to determine which of the names on the list have attributes that might qualify, or disqualify, them for a recruitment pitch. Both also collect personal data on each qualified candidate, including any indication of their ideological leaning, political; affiliations, financial standing, ambitions, and vanities, to help them make a tempting offer. But there are two important differences. First, unlike their counterparts in the private sectors, espionage headhunters ask their candidates not only to take on a new job with them but to keep their employment secret from their present employer. Second, they ask them to surreptitiously steal documents from him. Since they are asking candidates to break the law, espionage services, unlike their corporate counterparts in headhunting, obviously need to initially hide from the candidate the dangerous nature of the work they will do. Depending on the preferences of the targeted recruit, they might disguise the task as a heroic act, such as righting an injustice, exposing an illegal government activity, countering a regime of tyranny, or some other noble purpose. This disguise is called in the parlance of the trade a “false flag.” By using such a false flag, the SVR did not need to find candidate who were sympathy to Russia, or the Putin regime. In its long history dating back to the era of the Czars, Russian intelligence had perfected the technique of false flag recruitment through which it assumes an identity to fit the ideological bent of a potential recruit. Russian intelligence was well-experienced with false flags. It first used this technique following the Bolshevik revolution in 1918 to control dissidents both at home and abroad. The centerpiece, as later analyzed by the CIA, was known as the “Trust” deception. It began in August 1921 when a high-ranking official of the Communist regime in Russia named Aleksandr Yakushev, slipped away from a Soviet trade delegation in Estonia and sought out a leading anti- Communist exile he had known before the revolution in Russia. He then told him that he represented a group of disillusioned officials in Russia that included key members of the secret police, army, and interior ministry. Yakushev said that they all had come to the same conclusion: the Communist experiment in Russia had totally failed and needed to be replaced. To effect this regime change, they had formed an underground organization code-named the “Trust” because the cover for their conspiratorial activities was the Moscow headquarters of the Municipal Credit Association, which was a trust company. According to Yakushev’s account, it had had become by 1921 the equivalent of a de facto government, The exile leader in Estonia reported this astonishing news to British intelligence which, along with French and American intelligence, helped fund this newly-emerged anti-Communist group. Initially British intelligence had doubts about the bona fides of the Trust. So did other Western intelligence services sponsoring exile groups. But they gradually accepted it after they received HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020326