Secrets out at spies' summit

THE Cold War is over, the spy stations of the old foes long since shut down. Now is the time for those who fought this longest of conflicts to face each other across a peacetime and share the remaining secrets of their unique experience struggling for the opposing ideals of communism and capitalism.

This weekend in Berlin, the front-line city of the east-west standoff for over 40 years, an extraordinary summit of shady characters is taking place. Meeting for the first time are the spymasters, the agents, the message-carriers, the victors and the vanquished who struggled in the shadows of nuclear missiles to glean intelligence.

It was a war without medals and without much recognition; the protagonists laboured away without the honours afforded to their more overt colleagues.

Now secrets will be traded between former Central Intelligence Agency operatives and their counterparts who served with the KGB. Lloyd Salvetti, director of the CIA's Centre for the Study of Intelligence, called Berlin "arguably the hottest spot during the cold war". It is fitting, then, that former adversaries should meet in the now re-united city to learn of each others successes and mistakes.

This spy summit has a certain curiosity value for historians and enthusiasts of espionage who have been flocking to the summit venue since the erstwhile enemies began arriving in the city on Friday.

'The Intelligence War in Berlin 1949 - 1961' was attended by former KGB senior officers Oleg Kalugin and Oleg Gordievsky. It is the first time defector Gordievsky has attended such a meeting. The Russian's high-ranking counterparts include Vernon Walters, one-time CIA deputy director and former American ambassador to Germany.

More than a seminar about spycraft, secret inks and dead-letter boxes, the rapproachment is meant to be a data-sharing mission, to allow historians and archivists to glean a new perspective on how the intelligence war was conducted.

"The presence and willingness of intelligence veterans to begin sharing information during panel discussions will be a big help to us in collecting such information," said Helmut Trotnow, director of Berlin's Allied Museum where the conference is taking place. Published to co-incide with the conference are a set of intelligence documents by CIA historian Donald Steury, relating to the period after the second world war in Berlin.

Stanislaw Schnerowskym, a former KGB lieutenant now in his 70s, recalled how his mission was to fraternise with CIA women. He said: "We were given extra allowances of nylon stockings, perfume, chocolates and cigarettes. Only English speakers were allowed to get near these women but I am sure they were de-briefed at the highest level about any contact they had with us.

"It was just a game - they knew it and we knew it. We carried on playing because we had to. I don't think I ever got a single piece of useful information out of an American woman. But I had some nice times!"

A book which co-incides with the conference often makes intelligence gathering look anything but intelligent; for instance it says the Soviets knew of a secret CIA tunnel under Berlin before the agency began building it and that an East German spymaster, Markus Wolf, was cross-eyed.

One 1947 dinner party source, Major General Leonid Malinin, was so talkative after drinking three vodkas and five whiskys that he was invited for a meal with the American ambassador. The ambassador thought he was a loose-lipped source worth cultivating when he was in fact the head of a spy agency.

Klaus Manfried, an East German who worked for the Stasi of the DDR in the 50's, said: "I don't think what they trade will change history or even our perceptions of it. What they will provide is a valuable filler in the cracks of that history. We're all old soldiers after all, and there's nothing we like more than reminiscing."

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