(Russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Поляков)
|Born||6 July 1921|
|Died||15 March 1988 66)(aged|
|Cause of death||Executed|
|Alma mater||Graduated from Artillery School in June 1941|
|Rank||Major general (1-star general)|
Dmitri Fyodorovich Polyakov (Russian : Дмитрий Фёдорович Поляков) (6 July 1921 – 15 March 1988 ) was a Soviet Major General, a ranking GRU officer, and a prominent Cold War spy who revealed Soviet secrets to the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency. In the CIA, he was known by code names BOURBON and ROAM, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) knew him as TOPHAT (Top Hat).
Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although nearly three decades have passed since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal sovereign state in northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centers were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It spanned over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometers (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states, and the United States with its allies after World War II. The historiography of the conflict began between 1946 and 1947. The Cold War began to de-escalate after the Revolutions of 1989. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 was the end of the Cold War. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict split the temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany and its allies, leaving the USSR and the US as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences.
Born in Soviet Ukraine in 1921, he graduated from Sumy Artillery School in June 1941 and served as an artillery officer during World War II and was decorated for bravery. After the war and his studies at Frunze Military Academy and GRU Training Courses, he joined Soviet Military Intelligence, the GRU. His first mission was with the Soviet delegation to the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations in New York from 1951–1956.
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On his second assignment to New York, United States in 1959–1961, he approached FBI counterintelligence agents to offer his services as an informant. His follow-up overseas assignments included Rangoon, Burma (1965–1969) and New Delhi, India (1973–1976 and 1979–1980) where he was posted as Soviet Military Attaché. Some in the CIA feel that Polyakov became a mole because he was disgusted with the corruption of the Soviet Party elite.Victor Cherkashin suggested that he was embittered because Soviet leadership denied him permission to take his seriously ill son, the eldest of three, to a hospital in New York where he could get adequate medical attention. This son died as a result of the illness and soon after, Polyakov began his informant activities.
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. In order to distinguish the state from its city with the same name, it is sometimes referred to as New York State (NYS).
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For 25 years, he remained a CIA informant as he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a general. CIA officers speak in superlatives about the kind of information he provided. Sandy Grimes said of him, "Polyakov was our crown jewel,... the best source at least to my knowledge that American intelligence has ever had and I would submit, although I certainly can't be certain, but the best source that any intelligence service has ever had."James Woolsey said of him, "Polyakov was the jewel in the crown." CIA and FBI officials, including Deputy Director William Sullivan, believed that, at some point, Polyakov was turned by the Soviets and made into a triple agent who deceived the West with misinformation.
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Among the important information Polyakov provided:
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Polyakov was arrested by the KGB in 1986, six years after his retirement from the GRU. His contacts at the CIA had no information about what might have happened to him. Only later, it became clear that he was betrayed by both Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.In 1988, Polyakov was sentenced to death for treason and was executed.
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