Pensioner’s revenge on Soviet spy

Published on Sunday 27 January 2002 00:00

A PENSIONER from Scotland has revealed how he helped jail a high-ranking American soldier who gave Cold War secrets to the KGB.

Gene Drozdza, 68, travelled from his terraced home in Ayr to the United States to be a key prosecution witness in the trial of the most senior US military officer ever charged with spying.

Colonel George Trofimoff - codename Antev - was jailed for life at the end of last year for selling secrets to the Soviets over the course of 25 years.

Drozdza served as a US reserve captain at the height of the Cold War under the command of Trofimoff.

Drozdza’s evidence of Trofimoff’s wild spending was seen as vital in securing the conviction of his former boss. He recently received a letter of commendation from the US Department of Justice.

Drozdza told Scotland on Sunday he was pleased to have helped convict one of the world’s most prolific spies.

"He betrayed America and the American people," he said. "He had access to many secrets which detailed possible US reactions to any potential invasion by Warsaw Pact countries.

"I definitely feel he was involved and was guilty. I mixed with this man socially but did not know anything like this was going on. Although he was only slightly higher in rank to me, he was visibly spending more money on fancy cars, houses and furniture.

"He seemed to be making more money than anyone else including me and I was earning two wages by drawing a military pension at the time."

Drozdza, who was based at the US Army section of the Nuremberg Joint Interrogation Centre in Germany during the Cold War, served under reserve colonel Trofimoff, now 75, for nearly 10 years.

Part of their job was to interrogate defectors and refugees from the Soviet regime on life behind the Iron Curtain.

It emerged Trofimoff used a childhood friend who was a Russian Orthodox priest in a spying career that was noted in KGB archives smuggled out of Moscow.

He was arrested in Germany in 1994 but had to be released when the statute of limitations on spying lapsed.

However, when he retired to Florida he was trapped at a hotel in Tampa by an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian operative.

The disgraced serviceman admitted to the undercover agent he conducted a 25-year espionage campaign and pocketed almost 160,000.

Drozdza recounted the dramatic moment when he came face-to-face with his former boss in the dock in the Tampa courtroom.

He said: "As I took the witness stand, Mr Trofimoff was being led into the dock and we made eye contact.

"He simply smiled at me and said ‘Hello Gene’ and I just smiled back."

Due to his displaced Polish background the former intelligence officer said he still felt a lingering anger toward the disgraced serviceman.

He said: "I still feel angry at what he did. He betrayed the country which gave him shelter, food and money.

"And he betrayed his colleagues as well. That I did not like because it goes against everything I believe in."

During his evidence, Drozdza had told the court how it was possible to remove sensitive documents from their location in a ‘safe room’. He also added that Trofimoff could easily have taken the intelligence files away in his briefcase and photographed them.

Trofimoff’s value to the Soviet military was that he could tell his KGB masters exactly what the Americans knew about the Warsaw Pact’s readiness to fight, helping the Soviets hunt down the US agents who may have passed the information on.

He was later secretly decorated with the Order of the Red Banner.

Trofimoff initially faced 27 years in prison, but received a life sentence when Department of Defence officials intervened on behalf of President George W Bush.

Drozdza was born in Poland, but moved to the US, where he joined the armed forces. During his army career he saw active service in Korea and Vietnam before moving into the intelligence field. While stationed in Germany, he met his Scottish-born wife, Rona, who was teaching the children of British servicemen.

The couple married following his retirement in 1989 and settled in Rona’s hometown of Ayr.

As a witness in the case, Drozdza was not allowed to watch the legal proceedings. But Rona spent every day of their trip in court listening intently as the drama unfolded.

The 54-year-old former teacher said the whole episode was like a scene from a James Bond film.

She said: "I found the whole case fascinating. Each day there would be a different character in the stand.

"One day it was an FBI agent in disguise, then the next we had a KGB double agent called Boris, would you believe."