17 Facts About Dmitri Polyakov

Dmitri Fyodorovich Polyakov was a Major General in the Soviet GRU during the Cold War.

Kondrashev's post-Cold War friend and former high-level CIA counterintelligence officer Tennent H Bagley says Polyakov "flipped" and started spying for the CIA when he was reposted to Rangoon, Moscow, and New Delhi.

Dmitri Polyakov was suddenly recalled to Moscow in 1980, arrested, tried, and finally executed in 1988.

Dmitri Polyakov was born in Soviet Ukraine in 1921, the son of a bookkeeper.

Dmitri Polyakov graduated from Sumy Artillery School in June 1941 and served as an artillery officer during the Second World War, becoming decorated for bravery.

Frunze Military Academy and GRU Training Courses, Dmitri Polyakov joined the Soviet Union's foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Dmitri Polyakov maintained that he was a Russian patriot, motivated to become a double agent because of his disgust with the corruption of the Communist Party elite.

Dmitri Polyakov felt we were very naive and we were going to fail.

Dmitri Polyakov's son died as a result of the illness and, soon after, Polyakov approached the Americans.

About a year after his initial contact with the FBI, Dmitri Polyakov was posted back to Moscow where he was able to access GRU documents to identify double agents, exposing Frank Bossard, a guided-missile researcher in the British aviation ministry, and United States Army Sergeant Jack Dunlap, a courier at the National Security Agency.

Bagley says Dmitri Polyakov was recruited by the CIA in 1965 after he was posted to Rangoon, Burma, and that he spied for the Agency from then until he was recalled from New Delhi, India, to Moscow in 1980, at which time he disappeared from the CIA's "radar".

Bagley says Kondrashev told him that an unnamed "mole" in the CIA had reported to KGB headquarters what Dmitri Polyakov was telling the CIA, and that Dmitri Polyakov was arrested, tried, and executed because the KGB realized he was telling the CIA more than he was supposed to.

Dmitri Polyakov was arrested by the KGB in 1986, six years after his retirement from the GRU.

In 1988, Dmitri Polyakov was sentenced to death for treason, and subsequently executed.

Dmitri Polyakov insisted on staying in place to help us.

Dmitri Polyakov did for the West didn't just help us win the Cold War.

Some CIA and FBI officials, including Deputy Director William Sullivan, believed that, at some point, Dmitri Polyakov was turned by the Soviets and made into a triple agent who deceived the West with disinformation.