Teddy assumed the KGB would monitor his travels around the Soviet Union. In Kiev, Teddy discovers that someone went through his luggage. And half-century later he learns his suspicions were correct. The KGB wrote a report on him, complete with excerpts from his diary. What was in this report? What did the KGB hope to learn from Teddy? And what was this vast network for keeping tabs on tourists anyway?
Episode Resources
The KGB Report
The KGB Report on Teddy Roe, Part 1. English Translation.
Tourist Spies
Soviet poster warning citizens to beware of American tourists.
The KGB Report
The KGB Report on Teddy Roe, Part 2. English Translation.
Operation Lincoln
Robert Vandaveer, "Operation Lincoln," Studies in Intelligence, vol. 7, Winter, 1963.
Inside Russia
Ed Cony, "American Tourists Get 'Cold War' Briefings Before Trips to USSR," Wall Street Journal, 28 July 1961.
Americans Behave Badly
Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State
Telegram from the American Embassy in the Soviet Union to the US State Department on American tourists violating Soviet law.
Sources
Эдуард Андрющенко, “Советский дневник. Американец посетил СССР, а спустя полвека прочитал, что о нем писали в КГБ,” Настоящее время.
Марина Кедреновская, “Професиональная среда: Записки гида-переводчика о работе в “Интуристе” (СССР).”
Dina Fainberg, Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines, John Hopkins University Press, 2021.
Alexander Hazanov, “Porous Empire: Foreign Visitors and the Post-Stalin Soviet State,” Dissertation, 2016.
Andrew Jacobs, “Contact and Control: Americans Visit the Soviet Union, 1956-1985,” Dissertation, 2019.
Credits
Voice Over:
Marina Kenderovskaya voiced by Sera Passerini.
Music:
“Levin and Harper,” “Fifteen Street,” “Disinter,” “Borough,” “Tango Rosino,” and “Tarte Tain,” by Blue Dot Sessions.
Amazing Plan by Kevin MacLeod. License.