Word: nkvd
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...carrying a rucksack, he explored thousands of miles of the Soviet Union, all the way from the Urals to the borders of Chinese Sinkiang and Afghanistan. Maclean broke into many a forbidden area by the simple expedient of quietly climbing aboard the appropriate train. Provincial units of the NKVD were often too bewildered by Maclean's sudden appearances to know just what to do about him. When they put agents on his trail, Maclean went complacently about his sightseeing of ancient ruins. Sometimes he even became quite chummy with his shadows, sharing meals and train coaches with them...
...Like the NKVD, His Majesty's Foreign Office took little interest in their secretary's love of ancient Samarkand and Bokhara. What delighted them was up-to-date, first-hand information about the Soviet interior that young Maclean shipped home in his reports. Before long they summoned him back to London, rejoicing at having added to the home staff so valuable an expert on Soviet affairs...
...tell their stories. "I was arrested with my husband when we were trying to escape to Western Germany," said one woman. "We were accused of espionage for the Americans. My husband was sentenced to ten years and sent to Russia. The most terrible time I had was in the NKVD cellar at Hohen-schönhausen. One woman slashed her wrists and a man hanged himself...
...prisoners were bound by a long rope. As they marched past the handsome NKVD lieutenant, they thought him "a rescuer who had providentially arrived to remove their chains." This feeling was an illusion, of course, for the lieutenant was taking them to Siberia to work as slaves in the gold mines. But he seemed so kind, so eager to treat them as unfortunate men rather than political outcasts, that for a while they could not help loving...
Vulko Chervenkov (born Volov-his party name means The Red Wolf), a Bulgarian-born, longtime NKVD tough who spent 1923-44 in Moscow, became the late Georgi Dimitrov's bodyguard and brother-in-law. After Dimitrov's death, Vulko succeeded in liquidating his rival, Traicho Rostov (TIME, Dec. 26), became undisputed boss of Bulgaria, recently swore "loyalty to the last breath" to Stalin...