Word: kgb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...circumstances of Nicholas Daniloff's arrest last week were all too familiar to veterans of Moscow's Western press corps, who routinely endure unsettling if less serious encounters with the KGB. TIME Moscow Bureau Chief James O. Jackson, who has spent 6 1/2 years in the Soviet capital during three tours of duty, describes the difficulties of being an American correspondent in the Soviet Union...
...usually in front of the big Dom Igrushki toy store on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, sometimes seemed more like a TV sitcom than what they were and still are: an essential and sometimes perilous part of a Moscow correspondent's job. Moscow's Lyolyas -- what few are left after years of KGB crackdowns -- carry news of dissidents, refuseniks, political prisoners, religious activists, divided families and the other sad human detritus of a totalitarian state. The news is usually depressing, time consuming to gather, and often of too little import to warrant reporting. But still it must be covered...
Meetings with the Lyolyas are the occasions when correspondents most frequently come into indirect contact with the KGB's Second Main Directorate, the unit in charge of watching -- and sometimes entrapping -- foreigners. The encounters are always a little unnerving. KGB agents often tail known dissidents to watch and photograph those they meet. Or the KGB will suborn the dissidents, compelling them to pass on incriminating material or encourage incriminating activity -- as probably happened in the Daniloff case. Sometimes supposed dissidents are actually KGB agents or paid informers assigned to compromise correspondents...
Until the Daniloff arrest, surveillance of Westerners had often seemed more comical than dangerous. The KGB's imagination is limited to the shabbier vices, and the easy way to avoid being compromised was to steer clear of the usual peccadilloes: sexual misbehavior, currency speculation and smuggling...
...usually correctly, that their walls are bugged and their telephones tapped. Listening or homing devices can be hidden in their cars. Westerners are followed on picnics with their families, on walks with their dogs, on trips to the market. Joggers sometimes notice a drab sedan creeping along the curb; KGB agents do not share the American mania for fitness...