Iosif Grigulevich

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Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich (Иосиф Ромуальдович Григулевич), also known with a pseudonym as Iosif Lavretzky (Лаврецкий), (May 5, 1913 – June 2, 1988) was one of the most remarkable Soviet illegal operatives (an agent without diplomatic cover) from the 1930s to 1950s. He took a leading role in assassinating leftists who were not loyal to Joseph Stalin, such as anarchists, real and alleged Trotskyists, etc. in the period leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War. He was also instrumental in Leon Trotsky's assassination in 1940 and planned to murder Josip Broz Tito.

Grigulevich was of Lithuanian karaim ethnicity and was born in Trakai, near Vilnius, which at that time was within the Russian Empire. His parents immigrated to Argentina when he was young. His father did well for himself and later sent Iosif to Europe to study. However, some Russian sources state that only his father immigrated to Argentina and he and his mother remained in Poland and that he became a member of the Polish Communist party and was an acquaintance of Edward Gierek, not arriving in Argentina until 1934. In any case, in 1933 he studied briefly at the Sorbonne. He was recruited by the NKVD and had a gift for languages, soon picking up English, French and Russian.

In the late 1930s Grigulevich was sent to Spain to disrupt the activities of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Grigulevich worked under NKVD general Aleksandr Orlov using the code names MAKS and FELIPE and organized so-called "mobile groups" which physically eliminated various individuals including POUM leader Andres Nin done apparently in collaboration with "Comandante Carlos Contreras" Vittorio Vidale. He was summoned to Moscow in 1938 and then in January 1940 was sent to Mexico under the code name "Yuzek" to take part in the first, unsuccessful attempt on the life of Leon Trotsky again in collaboration with Vittorio Vidale. Later he was sent to Argentina under the code name "Artur", where he remained during World War II and organized anti-German sabotage operations. He married a fellow Soviet agent, a Mexican woman named Laura Arayo Aguar.

He went to Rome in 1949 using a false passport identifying him as Teodoro B. Castro, posing as the illegitimate son of a well-to-do Costa Rican and engaged in import-export business and made extensive professional contacts. In 1951 he was named Costa Rican ambassador to Italy and Yugoslavia. He was a member of the Costa Rican delegation to the sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly. In the meantime he was secretly given Soviet citizenship and membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In early 1953 he was assigned the task of organizing the assassination of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, with whom he had met on several occasions in his diplomatic role. However the death of Stalin in March 1953 interrupted these plans and Grigulevich was summoned to the USSR, and his career as an operative came to an end; meanwhile in Italy the disappearance without a trace of the Costa Rican ambassador and his wife and daughter created a stir and wild rumors of gangster involvement.

He was awarded a Ph.D. in historical sciences without having to defend a thesis. In later life he was a respected historian specializing in Latin America and the Catholic church, and author of 58 books, some of which were published under the pseudonym Iosif Lavretzky (Лаврецкий). In 1979 he became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. However colleagues were puzzled by the lack of any biographical information about him prior to his forties and his refusal to be photographed. His NKVD career did not come to light until after his death and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union.

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[edit] References

  • Andrew, C., and Mitrokhin, V. (1999). The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, London: Penguin Books.
  • Ross, Marjorie (2004). El secreto encanto de la KGB: las cinco vidas de Iósif Griguliévich editorial Farben/Norma, Costa Rica
  • Thomas Hugh (1997). The Spanish Civil War, Harper and Row, New York Revised and enlarged edition. ISBN 0-06-014278-2s]]