In 1973, Soviet Diplomat Aleksandr Ogorodnik was blackmailed into spying for the CIA, who knew that he had a pregnant mistress. At that time the diplomat was stationed in Colombia.
Ogorodnik was given the codename Trigon and was trained to copy documents with a tiny camera they had developed to fit into a fountain pen.
Soon after, in 1975, he took a post at the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s American Department in Moscow. The CIA put him in touch with Martha Peterson who was to act as his case officer. She disguised herself as a US embassy official. The two never met and carried out their successful espionage activities through dead drops around the city.
Ogorodnik’s cover was only blown when he was betrayed by a Czech inteligence officer who gave his name to the KGB. The KGB picked up Peterson just after she made a dead drop for Orogodnik at the Krasnoluzhskiy Rail Bridge.
He was picked up later and interrogated. However, the spy had insisted that he be given a lethal pill by the CIA for just such a situation. He had the pill hidden in a pen and bit down on it during his interview, committing suicide.
Do you think it was morally acceptable for the CIA to have blackmailed Soviets into spying?
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