Fedora (KGB agent)

Fedora was the codename for Yerbas Lichi or Victor Mechislavich Lesovski (Russian: Виктор Мечиславвич Лесовский), a KGB-agent that infiltrated the United Nations during the Cold War, from where he very successfully sabotaged American intelligence agencies by supplying false information. His cover was his work as a Soviet ambassador in the United Nations' headquarters in New York. Fedora was also a close associate and special assistant of the Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant.

Successes

The American FBI Agency regarded Fedora as one of their most important and most productive spies ever recruited, without knowing Fedora was actually a KGB-colonel spreading disinformation. As such, Fedora was among the most successful Soviet KGB-agents of the Cold War, his faulty intelligence being directly communicated to the White House. On one occasion, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger unconditionally believed Fedora's false information that a complete set of the so-called Pentagon Papers had ended up on the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. He also played an important role in guaranteeing or denying the authenticity of other KGB-agents who claimed to be switching sides, notably Yuri Nosenko, whom he tried to discredit.

References

• Brian Freemantle, De KGB, (Amsterdam 1985), Dutch translation of original title: Brian Freemantle, The KGB, (London 1982), Ch. 7: "Fedora en de Verenigde Naties" p. 154-166.