Farewell Dossier

The KGB officer whose documents exposed Soviet technology theft

Overview

Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB officer in the directorate responsible for scientific and technical intelligence, offered his services to French intelligence in 1981 and was run by the DST under the codename Farewell. He passed thousands of documents detailing Soviet efforts to acquire Western technology and naming hundreds of officers involved. President Francois Mitterrand shared the material with Ronald Reagan, and Western governments expelled scores of Soviet intelligence officers. Vetrov was arrested in 1982 after an unrelated violent crime in Moscow, his espionage was later uncovered, and he was executed in 1985.