The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (or KGB) was the name of the Soviet external security, intelligence agency, and secret police force from March 13, 1954, to November 6, 1991. The KGB was roughly equivalent to the American Central Intelligence Agency, and the counterintelligence division of the FBI. In 1953, Lavrenty Beria combined the MVD (Ministry of Interior Affairs) and MGB (Ministry of State Security) into one collective agency, the MVD. Within one year, Beria was executed and the MVD was broken apart. Reformed, the MVD retained internal security functions, and the new KGB accepted responsibility for external security of the USSR. The new agency’s control was given to the Council of Ministers. On July 5, of 1978, it was renamed the “KGB of the USSR” and the KGB chairman was given a seat on the council. In truth however, the KGB had a large degree of autonomy compared to other Soviet government bodies, and was largely independent of the Council of Ministers. The KGB’s tasks included external espionage, elimination of anti-Soviet persons within the USSR, counter-espionage, and guarding leaders of party and state. Interestingly, the KGB was only (supposedly) interested in learning enemy capabilities, unlike Western intelligence agencies, who were intent on learning enemy intentions. In the espionage field, the KGB relied primarily on HUMINT, or human intelligence, unlike the West, who relied much more on IMINT and SIGINT, imagery and signals intelligence. The KGB was successful at recruiting agents to work for them to steal US atomic secrets, and also the Cambridge Spies, most notably Kim Philby of England. After the crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, their previous method of conversion, using communist ideologies, failed, and the KGB was forced to rely on blackmail and bribery primarily from then on. However, this still achieved successes, such as the CIA mole Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen of the FBI. The KGB was organized into areas called directorates, here is a list of several of the main KGB directorates: 1) The First Chief Directorate (Foreign Operations) oversaw foreign operations and intelligence gatherin activities. 2) The Second Chief Directorate was in control of internal political control of foreigners within the USSR 3) The Third Chief Directorate (Armed Forces) was responsible for military counterintelligence and political surveillance of all Soviet armed forces. 4) The Fifth Chief Directorate was originally created to deal with political dissent. Later, it accepted some tasks handled previously by the Second Chief Directorate. 5) The Seventh Directorate (Surveillance) handled surveillance and reconaissance, it also provided need equipment to track and monitor foreigners and Soviet citizens. 6) The Eighth Chief Directorate dealt with communications. It monitored foreign communications and was responsible for transmission to overseas KGB stations, the development of communications equipment, and cryptological systems used by the KGB. 7) The Ninth Directorate (Guards Directorate) provided protection for important Party leaders and their families, and also guarded major government facilities in the Soviet Union. 8) The Sixteenth Directorate (former State Communications Department) handled telephone and radio systems used by all Soviet government agencies.

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