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Agence France Presse
January 13, 2012 Friday 12:40 PM GMT
Putin pays last respects to legendary Soviet spy
MOSCOW, Jan 13 2012
A host of spies led by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid
their last respects Friday to one of the Soviet Union's most legendary
agents as he was laid to rest in Moscow will full honours.
Gevork Vartanyan -- who protected the Allied "Big Three" in the World
War II Tehran conference -- died earlier this week aged 87 after
spending most of his professional life under cover abroad.
Putin, who served in the KGB in the former East Germany, attended the
ceremony at Moscow's Troyekurovskoye cemetery to pay his last respects
to the "outstanding Soviet intelligence officer," a government
statement said.
Putin was shown on national television arriving with a bunch of red
roses and kissing a woman -- apparently Vartanyan's widow and fellow
agent Goar -- three times on the cheeks while holding her hands with
his.
At a ceremony complete with military honours, mourners filed by
Vartanyan's casket covered with the Russian tri-colour flag, with his
numerous decorations including the top state award -- the Hero of the
Soviet Union -- displayed on red velvet pillows nearby.
Mikhail Fradkov, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service
(SVR) -- the successor to the Soviet KGB, as well as former service
heads Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei Lebedev were also in attendance,
said NTV television channel.
Vartanyan's greatest exploit was his role in thwarting a Nazi
assassination plot at the 1943 conference in Tehran between the Allied
"Big Three" of Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, British prime minister
Winston Churchill and US president F.D. Roosevelt.
"He was a professional of the highest calibre," Putin said in a
telegram to Vartanyan's relatives, adding he had lived a "great,
bright life full of heroic events."
The son of an Iranian factory owner of Armenian origin, Vartanyan is
survived by Goar, who he married three times under different names and
in different countries as part of their career undercover, according
to government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta. They had no children.
as/sjw/ach
January 13, 2012 Friday 12:40 PM GMT
Putin pays last respects to legendary Soviet spy
MOSCOW, Jan 13 2012
A host of spies led by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid
their last respects Friday to one of the Soviet Union's most legendary
agents as he was laid to rest in Moscow will full honours.
Gevork Vartanyan -- who protected the Allied "Big Three" in the World
War II Tehran conference -- died earlier this week aged 87 after
spending most of his professional life under cover abroad.
Putin, who served in the KGB in the former East Germany, attended the
ceremony at Moscow's Troyekurovskoye cemetery to pay his last respects
to the "outstanding Soviet intelligence officer," a government
statement said.
Putin was shown on national television arriving with a bunch of red
roses and kissing a woman -- apparently Vartanyan's widow and fellow
agent Goar -- three times on the cheeks while holding her hands with
his.
At a ceremony complete with military honours, mourners filed by
Vartanyan's casket covered with the Russian tri-colour flag, with his
numerous decorations including the top state award -- the Hero of the
Soviet Union -- displayed on red velvet pillows nearby.
Mikhail Fradkov, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service
(SVR) -- the successor to the Soviet KGB, as well as former service
heads Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei Lebedev were also in attendance,
said NTV television channel.
Vartanyan's greatest exploit was his role in thwarting a Nazi
assassination plot at the 1943 conference in Tehran between the Allied
"Big Three" of Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, British prime minister
Winston Churchill and US president F.D. Roosevelt.
"He was a professional of the highest calibre," Putin said in a
telegram to Vartanyan's relatives, adding he had lived a "great,
bright life full of heroic events."
The son of an Iranian factory owner of Armenian origin, Vartanyan is
survived by Goar, who he married three times under different names and
in different countries as part of their career undercover, according
to government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta. They had no children.
as/sjw/ach