Vasily Zarubin

Markov[edit]

One of the documents in the Venona project collection is an anonymous letter, dated 7 August 1943, to "Mr. Guver" (Hoover). It identifies Soviet "intelligence officers and operations that stretched from Canada to Mexico." It also includes accusations of war crimes against the KGB Rezident in Washington, D.C., Vassili M. Zarubin (a.k.a. Zubilin), and his deputy, Markov (in the United States under the alias of Lt. Col. Vassili D. Mironov).


The anonymous author asserted that Zarubin and his deputy Markov were directly implicated in the bloody occupation of eastern Poland during the Nazi-Soviet alliance of 1939-1941 and the murder of some 15,000 Polish soldiers—officers and NCOs, regulars and reservists—captured by the Red Army. The letter provided accurate and early confirmation of Soviet complicity in the executions in the Katyn Forest, where German occupation forces in April 1943 discovered a mass grave containing 4,300 Polish corpses and widely publicised the discovery and accused the Soviet Union of the massacre.


Semyon Semenov in New York City and Grigory Kheifets in San Francisco were also identified in the letter. Regarding Semenov, the letter said, "SEMENOV works in AMTORG, is robbing the whole of the war industry in America. SEMENOV has his agents in all the industrial towns of the U.S.A., in all aviation and chemical war factories and in big industries. He works very brazenly and roughly, it would be very easy to follow him up and catch him red handed." Pavel Sudoplatov, head of the NKVD's Administration for Special Tasks wrote in 1992 that the author of this letter is Markov.


The letter caused Zarubin to be recalled to Moscow. An investigation of him and Elizabeth Zarubina lasted six months and established that he was not working with the FBI. Markov was recalled from Washington and arrested on charges of slander, but when he was put on trial, it was discovered that he was schizophrenic. He was hospitalized and discharged from the service.