KGB had major foothold in India, book says

LONDON - Russia's feared KGB spy service penetrated all levels of the Indian government under Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and became a major cash backer of her Congress (R) party, according to a book published today.

The KGB operation in India during that period was its largest in the world outside the Soviet bloc and it even had to create a new department to handle it, according to The Mitrokhin Archive II based on the KGB's own secret files.

"During 1975 a total of 10.6 million rubles was spent on active measures in India designed to strengthen support for Mrs Gandhi and undermine her political opponents," the book says.

Suitcases of money were regularly taken into the prime minister's house to fund the party, and in the 1977 election that Gandhi lost, nine of her party's candidates were KGB agents, it adds.

And when Gandhi returned to power in 1980, the KGB proceeded to influence Indian government policies by fuelling her paranoia of CIA plots through disinformation tactics backed by forged documents leaked to the press.

When Gandhi's son Rajiv took over from her after she was assassinated in 1984, the KGB continued to both court and scare him through lavish receptions and more tales of CIA plots.

The relationship only foundered when Rajiv lost power in 1989 and as the Soviet Union itself started to disintegrate.

The book is the second volume detailing the Cold War activities of the KGB, based on top secret agency files stolen over more than two decades by archivist Vasili Mitrokhin and handed over in 1992 when he defected to Britain.

It notes that as early as 1961 the KGB had decided that it would wage its war against the capitalist West on the battlefields of the Third World and not directly against the "Main Adversary", the United States.

The book tells how the KGB funded and supported Chilean leader Salvador Allende -- who it gave the codename LEADER -- but then abandoned him as the Chilean economy collapsed and he was overthrown and killed in a coup.

It details KGB operations in Iran and Iraq as it tried to exert influence in the Middle East after initially winning over Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser but then being rejected by his successor Anwar Sadat.

It notes the agency's successes in Syria and Yemen but its abject failure to make serious inroads into Israel.

The book examines the KGB's campaign to infiltrate apartheid South Africa through its backing of the African National Congress, and gives examples of some of its successful disinformation campaigns -- again using forged documents planted in the press -- implicating the CIA in supporting the regime.

Mitrokhin died in January 2004 at his home in England. Christopher Andrew, author of both books and an expert on intelligence affairs, said that his archive -- some of which remains classified -- was one of the biggest ever intelligence coups.

- REUTERS