KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko and CIA case officer Jack Platt were inseparable as friends, despite their positions in opposing intelligence agencies. Against all odds the pair became as close as brothers, even though Jack was first tasked to recruit and turn Gennady in Washington DC in 1979. Gennady never betrayed his own government but the two became great friends nonetheless, sharing a love of shooting and a hatred of their mutual bureaucracies.
Gennady was eventually jailed and interrogated for six months by the KGB in 1988 because they believed he’d taken Jack up on his offer but was released when no evidence was found, and his fellow KGB coworkers stood up for him. He was later imprisoned again in 2005 because the Russian government believed that in 2001, he’d had a hand in identifying their greatest asset within the US government, FBI agent Robert Hanssen.
Gennady was brutally interrogated for more than two years until his friendship with actor Robert DeNiro became known within the prison, and his celebrity status brought him reduced hardships. The two men met many times while DeNiro was preparing for The Good Shepherd, his 2006 film about the early days of the CIA.
Eventually through the efforts of Jack Platt and many others who knew Gennady, he was released in the dramatic spy exchange which took place at the Vienna Airport in 2010. Gennady and three other imprisoned Russians were traded for the famous Russian Ten sleeper agents which included Ana Chapman. Gennady found his new home finally in the United States, a country he’d never sworn loyalty to, but which accepted him, nonetheless.
For Episode 21 of the Spycraft 101 podcast I spoke with Eric Dezenhall, author of Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War. We talk about the surprising relationship between a CIA man and his KGB target, the risks both men took for each other, and how Gennady may have inadvertently helped the US government find one of the most damaging moles in American history.
